to Matthew chapter 23, and we will get a little ways into chapter 24 this morning. I hope, I can promise as much as I can, as much as it's in my hands, we will do that together. And then as we find that, let's begin with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have your word. that which was spoken by you into existence, to be the light of the world, to be the salvation of our souls, to be our water in a dry land, to be our food in a weary and famine land. Lord, we ask that we would revere your word this morning. It is perfect, it is infallible, there is nothing In error, nothing to be questioned. But Lord, your judgments are to be trembled at. Your mercies are to be rejoiced in. Your kindness is to be exalted in. And your power is to be feared. And so we ask that you would help us. Help us to have right responses to your holiness this morning, right affections toward your grace. I pray in your name, amen. This morning as we end chapter 23, And some of you may be wondering, I thought we were finished with chapter 23 as of last week, and we were, sort of, but I was not quite satisfied with the very ending, and I wanted to make sure we gave due diligence to Jesus's lament over Jerusalem, because this is such a turning in the book of Matthew, leaving now the temple. So just by way of brief introduction, remember that Jesus has been preaching in the temple now for several chapters. And as Jesus entered the temple coming from that triumphal entry, he was confronted by the chief priests and elders, by what authority do you do these things? Do you cleanse the temple? And so Jesus now stands at the end of that. He is delivering his final word to his people in his temple. and at the end of this deliverance, he will depart from them, and it is a matter, a rather dramatic departure, though in the texts of the scriptures this morning, it's easily glossed over, Jesus left the temple, but there is no leaving like this temple, for he warns them, you will never again see me. Let's read this passage together. I'm gonna start in verse 37, and we'll continue through the first three verses of chapter 24. Jesus here laments after delivering the woes. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the building of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, then, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Now I wanted to begin with our sermon this morning by a brief introduction, if I could, from Psalm 118. And the reason we're doing this is because the primary goal of our message is that you would be impressed, or it would have it impressed upon you, that the prosperity of any house whether it be the house of God, this church, your own private dwelling, or any institution, the prosperity of any is due only to the presence of Christ. And specifically, the spiritual prosperity of any house is due to Christ and His presence and His covenant love toward that people. And so, great truly is the desolation of any house left without Christ. And as I struggled this week to think about how do I show, how do I display the true desolation of a place that has been left apart from Jesus, that Jesus has departed from, I thought it might be helpful to look at it on the negative, or I'm sorry, on the flip side, which is to say, look at how the scriptures always display the blessedness and prosperity of where Christ is. If we can see that, then it'll help us to understand truly the state that these people were in. Because the chapter is sort of anticlimactic. The destruction of Jerusalem is not for many decades yet to come, and Jesus leaves as if nothing changes. It may seem as though the Jewish people are left in the same state of some prosperity as before. But turn with me, if you will, to Psalm 118. And we're just going to look together at a few things about the blessedness of being in the house of the Lord. It begins with this repeated refrain, let Israel say his steadfast love endures forever. Let Aaron say his steadfast love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say his steadfast love endures forever. And in verse 5 of Psalm 118, he says, the psalmist begins, out of my distress I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. And he goes on to recount how these nations and these enemies were surrounded against him. And then he is brought to a point where he may say in verse 14, the Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. Verse 15, glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. What is the joy in the tent of the righteous? It is the songs of salvation. The right hand, verse 16, of the Lord exalts. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O Lord. O Lord, we pray, give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. And I'll stop there. But my intent is to show you that this repeated refrain, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, is given on the lips of the... faith in Jesus on the lips of those who welcome His presence, on those who would say, Jesus, unless you be with us, we would not go into the land, or would say, Christ, our joy, the joy of the tent of the righteous is the salvation of God. And so, as we come then back to Matthew 23, and we look at Jesus' lament, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, we might understand something of the heart of our Savior. He understands the significance of what is about to happen. Though they are questioning His authority, and they would want Him out of the temple, He understands that His departure is truly a final departure in which the joy of the house of the Lord will be cut off. The prosperity of the house of the Lord will be ended, and there is no more blessing for this people, for this temple, for this place, for this mount of Jerusalem. And so he laments, he laments and he weeps. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. But he knows how this city is characterized, does he not? Look at this. We would expect him to say maybe something, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that great city, that city of the people of God, that blessed place of God's promises, that grandeur of the King of David, the city set on a hill. But no, that's not what Jesus says here, is it? This city. is characterized as a city that kills the prophets, stones those who are sent to it, and is unwilling to be gathered by Christ. So let's look at those three things as a beginning this morning. Those three things, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets, that stones those who are sent to it, and who is unwilling to be gathered by Christ. As Jesus recounts that this is a city who stones the prophets, it would be good to us to remember a prophet is one who speaks the Word of God. A prophet is one who particularly not just speaks the word of God, but is sent to call those who have rebelled against God back to his fold, back to faithfulness in God, back to trusting him. A prophet is one who is sent toward those who are gods, who God would still deal with, are not utterly given over to destruction and desolation, and yet He is calling them back because of their error, because of their sin. A prophet is a sign of God's favor still, is it not? If God sends a word to those who are wayward, this is a sign that God would still deal with you. God would still have you come. God would still have you repent and return to Him. in the New Covenant and always, particularly now since we have the completed canon, a prophetic word is one that takes for its substance the scriptures. When a brother or a sister sits down with you and says, look, but this is what the word says. Or when a pastor or a counselor or a teacher says, this is what God says. And you look to his word and you say, I see it. That is what the scripture says, is it not? And yet you would refuse. You would refuse to listen to it. You would deny it. And in any outward expression, you would say, no, I refuse to listen to this person. This is what Jesus says Jerusalem is characterized by, those who kill the prophets. Whether it's delivered publicly from a pulpit or privately in counseling, when a good word is given, The New Testament people, the people of God, are characterized as those who would listen to the prophetic word of God. It is given for your good, for our good, that we might repent. How this ought to be the characteristic of us, brothers and sisters. It ought to be our joy. Our joy to know that the Lord deals with us as with children when he comes and speaks a word of correction to us. How quick we should be to set our feet toward the path which is righteous. But it goes on, he says, Jerusalem, not only did you kill the prophets, but you stoned those who are sent to you. And you know the stories and you can think of this, right? Not only a prophet is one who is sent to call you back to repentance, But upon the sending of the servants to those who were keeping the vineyard, what did they do? They stoned the one who was sent, and again another was sent, and they killed and beat this one. This is adding insult to grace. See, oftentimes, brothers and sisters, Though we ought never to presume on his grace, oftentimes God deals with us, not just once, but again and again and again. He comes to us and calls us. He bids us come, and though we refuse him, he would send another prophet. He would send another word. He would beckon to us, come, listen to the word of God. It is truly a hard heart, then, that would stone that message again. Though he comes a second time, a third time, a fourth time, we reject the word that he says. This is how Jerusalem had come to be characterized by. May it not be said of us, brothers and sisters, of our hearts. May the people of God be those that though they may stumble, though they may refuse to listen the first time yet, they will come, they will listen. And truly it is the case, brothers and sisters, no one shall pluck those whom Christ has redeemed from his hand. So let us, let us be humble. Let us listen to those whom God sends and speaks true word, who takes for its basis the scriptures and delivers them to us, applies it to our heart and shows us our error. Remember though, brothers and sisters, these people in Jerusalem now, they are not merely rejecting a sent one, they are rejecting the sent one. There was one prophet sent as the apex of all prophets. The pinnacle of all word delivered is the word incarnate, the son of God, the sent one. And here they reject him. They reject Jesus. He is the one that God has sent from heaven to earth to bring a message. He is, if you will, the very, very oracle of God embodied that he might deliver to you the truth of the message of the grace of God, show you truly the law of God, and show you truly the guilt and the destruction that is due for those who are guilty under that law, and yet proclaim to you repentance. There ought to be great hope and great embrace of this one, the Messiah, if there is one thing that we, the new Jerusalem, will never be characterized by, and I say that not in hardness of heart, but merely on the promises of God, not that any one of us may here be here in hypocrisy, but rather because God has said his church will succeed. I say there is nothing that will never characterize the church of God like this. The Church of God will always be that people who embrace Jesus as their Savior. It is so, brothers and sisters. And thirdly, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, not only the one that kills the prophets, not only the one that stows those who are sent to it, but they are here the ones who are unwilling to be gathered under the wings of Christ. And I want you to think about this analogy for just a moment. We have all seen, I hope, perhaps some of us has been around perhaps a mother bird or a hen, a chicken, or a flock of ducks, and you've seen the tendency, the natural tendency, not just tendency, but the deliberate drive of a mother to gather her brood under her wings. There is nothing so unnatural for a chick than to refuse the gathering of its mother. How foolish it would be for some small, innocent, or helpless, if you will, chickling to refuse to come at the beckings and cluckings, the wooings of its mother. There is no life, there is no survival, unless you would come and be gathered under those wings. There is no teaching, there is no instruction, unless you would listen to the mother who teaches these little ones, and yet Jesus here compares Jerusalem to those who are unwilling. Those who are unwilling. How foolish. Proverbs 1, chapter 24, speaks of the one who would scoff at instruction, the one who would not be gathered. We read this. Proverbs 1, verse 24. How long, oh simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge if you return to my reproof? Behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will make my words known to you if you would turn Chapter nine, likewise, is full of this repetition of the folly of the scoffer who would turn away from the wisdom that is delivered here in Jesus. He calls these people in the temple, he calls them foolish, utter fools to reject Jesus. How foolish it is indeed to turn away from the wings of the Savior. Now this does provoke a question, does it not? Turning back to Matthew, and we talked about this question briefly last week, but I did want to linger on it just for a moment, because I think it's an important question to wrestle with. Jesus here, in speaking of his own heart, says how often, he proclaims, how often I would have gathered them under the wing like A hen gathers her chicks, but they were not willing. But they were not willing. And I want you to realize, the doom of these people is due to the hardness of their heart. It is due to the hardness of their heart. And here we remember the words, we know that Jesus is the One who saves. And we know that Jesus is powerful to save. There is nothing we can do to resist His will. Recall the book of Ephesians 2 where it says, You He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. And we love to exult together with one another in the sovereignty of God to redeem a hardened sinner. who had gone astray, who had turned to His own way. He has returned us to the captain and overseer of our souls. And it has been Him, He did it. He did it in our hearts and it was not us. We have no bit of credit to take for this. And yet here it seems like Jesus puts the fault, and indeed He does, on these people. They were not willing. And here I want you to see that Jesus, their refusal to embrace their Messiah, is the fault for their woe. In other words, Think of it this way. When we think about the sovereignty of God in salvation, it is easy to error in one of two ways. And this passage helps us see that. We can error by saying, well, look, Christ here, he's unable to save. You see that? He wants to, Jesus, he wants to, but he's unable. Or maybe he doesn't want to, maybe he's not willing. But this text clearly shows us, no, Jesus is willing. Jesus is willing to save. Does he say that? How often, how often I would have gathered Jesus is willing to save those sinners who are not willing. And yet we must never say that Christ is unable. We must never say that Christ is unable. We read. about this profound mystery in the book of Romans. But before we go there, I want you to see how this works out. Psalm 36, I'm emphasizing the fact that when Jesus condemns a sinner to destruction, he is not condemning a sinner to destruction because Jesus is unwilling to save them. or because he is unable to save them, but because of God's divine providence, their hearts are hard and they are guilty of condemnation. And there is no contradiction there. Christ, God, has ordained his world to work this way, that those who are hard in their hearts are guilty of all the just condemnation that is given to them. and I want you to see that from Psalm 36. Psalm 36, if I can get there, I'm sure everyone is there now already. We read this right at the beginning of the psalm. Listen to what it says. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes, that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. Do you see the depravity of man there? You see that though he would seek it out, he cannot find out his own iniquity. He cannot turn and hate his own sin. Deep in his heart, there is no fear of God in his eyes. Transgression speaks to him deep in his heart. This is a picture of our depravity, brothers and sisters. This is who we are naturally, and this is who every person in the world is naturally. We are ones who cannot search out our own transgression, cannot see our own guilt, who cannot turn, and we have no fear of God in our eyes, before our eyes, and in our hearts. Now you might ask then, Well, if that's true, if we have no ability to turn to God, how does he still find fault? Is that really fair, God? Is that fair that you would come and condemn those who are so deprived of grace? And of course, we've heard the answer before in Romans 9. But before I read a part of this, I want you to realize that the question that Paul is wrestling with in chapter 29 is precisely the context that we're reading in Matthew chapter 23. As Jesus comes to the temple of his people and he walks away from that temple, these were his covenant people, were they not? These were the Jews. To them belonged the oracles of God, the covenants, the fathers, the giving of the law. They had all these things. And Paul here is dealing with that and he says, is it as though the promises of God have failed? And he says, no, surely not. is does not God have a right to make the vessels worthy, some worthy of honor and some worthy of dishonor? And so after laying this out, Paul asks in verse 19 of chapter nine, you will say to me then why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? That's the question we just asked, isn't it? If it is true that these people are worthy of condemnation, of eternal judgment, if it is true that God's judgments are just, which we labored last week to say, God's judgments, his condemnation of the Pharisees is just, his condemnation of this temple is just, then how does he still find fault? But listen to this stern rebuke of Paul where he says, But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? What is molded, say to its molder, Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath, to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory? And this, brothers and sisters, is exactly what we are seeing playing out here today. Jesus has endured with much mercy these vessels who are prepared for wrath and destruction. But I want you to see the heart of Jesus in this. That's the whole point I'm trying to say here. Jesus really laments over these people, and yet these are people who are hardened and are not saved by God's own design. These are vessels prepared for destruction, and yet the heart of our Savior toward them is, how often I would have gathered you under my wings and you were not willing. How often I would have gathered you and you were not willing. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Let no man ever say, God was not willing to save me. Let no man ever say, God is not willing to save you. But we go to our brother and to our sister and we say, brother, sister, how often God would have gathered you under his wings if you were willing. And we plead with them that way. because the sovereignty of God is no contradiction to our offer of the gospel to brothers and sisters, to those who are lost even. We must go to them and proclaim to them the heart of Christ for sinners, the heart which goes after them and says, I am willing to save, I am a willing savior. Christ is not one who you must drag into the court of heaven, please, Jesus, be my savior. And he says, no, no, maybe. No, Jesus is not the one dragging his feet to your salvation. Jesus was the one who came to save. In an appropriate time, he saved you, he redeemed you, he called you into his holy temple. Christ is the willing and persistent savior here, brothers and sisters. And though he is able to save, here he leaves these people to the hardness of their heart, and he weeps over it, and he laments it. There is a time, brothers and sisters, there is a time where the mercy of God comes to an end for those who have been prepared for destruction. And we must not see that as any reason to exalt over, to rejoice over the destruction of the wicked, but let us with our Savior weep over this destruction. Jesus points out here, look what he says. See? See? Do you not see? Your house is left to you desolate. The one who would reject Christ is making that decision. For this house, for me and my house, we will not serve the Lord. That's what one says. For me and my house, we will not have the prosperity. We will not have the glad songs of salvation in these walls. Who are you, Jesus? By what authority do you come to this house? Do you not see that the house without Christ is a desolate place? a barren place, a land with no hope? What hope is there in our parenting? What hope is there in our discipleship? What hope is there in our gathering, of our singing together, of our feasting together if there is not Christ there? Do you not see what Jesus says? 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 there will be a day when every knee will bow, and every person will confess he is Christ, and will utter, blessed is the one who came in the name of the Lord. But let us, like that beggar, Remember that beggar who came and said, son of David, son of David, have mercy on me. The blind man who would cry out and cared not what the crowds thought. Son of David, bless me. Have mercy on me. But then, brothers and sisters, look at this with me. And this really, this touched my heart this week. As we rejoice in Christ, the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord, We remember that salvation is by this confession. We've already come through so much of Christ's teaching at this point. When Christ says, Peter, who do people say that I am? And, you know, well, they say, some say a prophet, some say Elijah. And who do you say I am? Well, you are the Christ. Blessed are you, Peter. Blessed are you, the one who confesses this. And this is what Jesus is saying here. You will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It's not that there would not be someone who would see Jesus in the flesh with their eyes. There were many who jeered at him at the cross. Many who said, we want Barabbas. And they saw him in his flesh, for sure. But they did not see him. He was not there for them as he was here in the temple, pleading with them for them to come and turn to Christ. And so as we think about the woe, the condemnation, we think about this confession, we may often think to ourselves, but who are the disciples of Jesus? After all the criticism of Jesus toward these Pharisees, we think, well, is Christianity just like walking this razor's edge? I better not be a hypocrite in this way, and I better not be a hypocrite in this way. Man, I don't even know if I can do this Christian thing because, man, with all the light that the Pharisees had, with all the light that was there at Jerusalem, here these people were rejecting Jesus. We are prone to doing the same thing, brothers and sisters, are we not? But look at this, okay? This is what struck me this week, okay? So Jesus gives all these woes. He's condemning the outward hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He's condemning the temple. He leaves the temple. He leaves it behind. And, of course, for all the disciples, we're to be there with Jesus, condemning what he condemns and following after Jesus. And look what his disciples do in verse 24. Jesus left the temple. He was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the building of the temple. Jesus, have you considered, though, these stones? Look at how well this place is built. You know, one of the interesting things, when the ruler of Rome, I think it was Titus, who was the Roman soldier who came and ultimately rendered Jerusalem destroyed, he makes a comment in Josephus and says, after examining the walls of this place, had the Lord not been on their side, they would not have captured it because the joints of the stone were so tight and the beauty of the way it was made. And here the disciples are making this error. They say, Jesus, I know you're walking away from Jerusalem and the temple and all this, and you've condemned it all, but really, have you seen the building of the temple? I mean, have you examined this? Is there not some glory here? And Jesus, he does not turn and say, go back to the temple where you belong, you hypocrite, you Pharisee. Did you not hear all that I said? Jesus says, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. And first, I want you to realize how poor these disciples were in their understanding. They did not understand yet the fullness that was here. They did not perceive Jesus the greater temple than the temple that was here. They did not understand all the fullness of this doctrine that Jesus had been laboring over them to teach them. And nevertheless, they were the disciples of Jesus, and he dealt with them gently. And he took them and he said, look, do you not see that all of this is going to be laid waste? how often we are like this, brothers and sisters. We are the distracted ones. We are the ones easily allured and deceived by what we see with our eyes. We are the ones who, though we follow Jesus, we know that there is much given to our lives and to worldliness that turns our face away from really perceiving the truth of what Jesus is saying, really looking to him as the one who is worth having above and beyond all else. But the hope here is that, brothers and sisters, though you do not know Jesus fully, though there is much to learn, though there is much to progress in your Christian life, Jesus still deals with his disciples. You see, he's taking them over to the Mount of Olives, and there he will give them much instruction of how to deal with this coming destruction. Likewise, brothers and sisters, there's an invitation. Though you may sit there today and you may feel distracted or you may feel that you have been the one that was more compelled by the trappings of the world. You were more motivated to go after this rather than Christ. You were more motivated to go after that which was about to be destroyed than the things which are eternal this week. And it is true in our own hearts. Yet Jesus here invites you to come with him to the Mount of Olives. Come with him, he's giving you instructions for this time of perseverance. You see, Jerusalem, this great place, was quite literally, in a matter of a few years, going to be rendered utter desolate, physically. Not just the absence of Christ and his flesh, and not just the absence of the fruits of faith, but truly every stone left unturned. Women weeping for their children, children dying of famine, men acting like animals, crosses outside the city, crucified. Many, many Jews were crucified. And Jesus is here telling his disciples, do you not see all this will be destroyed? And in much the same way, brothers and sisters, we must ask. In our poor condition, in our condition which is easily distracted, Do you see this? What do you envy? What do you esteem? What are you looking at as that which ought to take God and make him favorable toward you? If Jesus were, walk with me, right, for a moment, stay with me. If you're a disciple here, right, and you're walking with Jesus, and you see Jesus's condemnation on a world And you say, well, maybe the master just needs us to show him something a little bit more beautiful about us or a little bit more beautiful about our temple. Maybe the master just needs to notice how much we try, how hard we sing, or how much effort I'm putting into this work that I'm doing. Maybe Jesus just needs to be shown something so that he would not render this judgment. And Jesus is saying, no, look. All of this is about to be destroyed. I want your eyes on me. It's not about this because the new heaven and the new earth is coming. Jesus will build and he will plant his people and they will prosper and dwell. It's not so much about that. It's about where your eyes are, where your affections are. Will you continue to be captivated by what is about to be destroyed? Or will you once and for all leave behind the prestige of what is external? Particularly here, it was the trappings of external religion, was it not? It had been so ingrained in that culture that the temple of the Lord, the phylacteries of the garment of the Pharisees, the tassels on their garment, rather, and the praying on street corners, and this openness show of religiosity that was so ingrained in their minds that they just couldn't get their minds off of it to say, well, isn't Jesus impressed with that? Truly, all of that will be destroyed. I ask you, is this the house you want? Do you want a house that is great on the outside, that draws the attention of all your friends and says, yes, that's a great house, but has not Christ in its center, has not Christ at its heart? I think Jesus would point something out like the Apostle John does in 1 John chapter two. First John chapter two. He would not leave you, as it were, in that poor state. Notice this, right? So, okay, so we wanted the disciples, we wanted the disciples to be much better than the Pharisees and the hypocrites, and we wanted them to walk away just like Jesus did from that temple, having no regard for the stones and the buildings, and yet we see that the disciples of Jesus are still distracted, and Jesus, Jesus doesn't leave them there. That is, though we are immature, we must press on to realize what is being said here. We must learn, continue to learn from Jesus. So in 1 Peter, I'm sorry, in 1 John, chapter two, verse 16, I'll read verse 15. I think, best I can read, and you decide, brothers and sisters, if this is a proper application, but I think this is the heart of what Jesus is saying in the first few verses of chapter 24. He says, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, And the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And listen, and the world is passing away along with its desires. Realize that. There are things which are passing away. There are things which are not as valuable as other things. This is not a condemnation of saying we ought not to enjoy the pleasurable things of life. That's not what it's saying. It's saying, do you love? Is all your affection placed on the things which are passing away? Do you treasure those moments of joy at the restaurant, or the pleasures of that movie, or treasure the pleasures of that recreation more than you treasure the truth that Christ is your Savior? Again, not to say that any of those things in and of themselves are not given in a common grace way for joy. But, as John says, there are things which are passing away along with its desires. And notice that, though. That is a hopeful thing. When it says not just those things are passing away, but the desires for those things are passing away. In you, at work, in your heart, brothers and sisters, if you are Christ, at work in you is a passing away of the fleeting desires of the things which are passing away. Does that make sense? Of those things which are not eternal, there is a work in your heart saying, I love those things less and less. The desires for those temporary things are passing away. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Forever. So brothers and sisters, I pray, I hope if this was helpful that we see as Jesus laments over Jerusalem, as he laments over them, knowing their destruction and the desolation of a place without Christ. And as he leads his disciples away to the Mount of Olives, we also would go, as it were, with him to this mount. We would sit at his feet to be instructed, and we would love the things that he says, because he is helping us Wean our affections off of those things which are passing away and building in us true affections for things which are lasting, affections of righteousness, things which will be for eternity. Let's pray. Lord, if it is your kind will, that this scripture would go forth and change all of us to be more and more in the image of Christ. Christ, the one who could see true hypocrisy for what it was, could realize the temporal nature of the things which were now dead because the true and living Christ had come. I pray we also would be changed more and more into that image that we saw today. Lord, though we often, like these disciples, will turn right around, even after this very sermon, and we will think in our hearts, have you not seen the buildings of this temple? Isn't this so much better? And we will put out of our minds what is eternal. We will neglect to see that righteousness is what God desires. We will forget what kind of a man we truly are. Let us, Lord, look into the perfect law of liberty and see though I am wrought into a sinner, Christ, he is the eternal one. Mercy and grace is there forever. Joy is in the house of salvation. May that be where our hearts are this week, Lord, I pray and I ask in your mercy, Lord, give this to us, I pray, amen.