Let's go to the Lord one more time in prayer. Lord, we thank You for a complete Bible. We thank You for showing us a complete Christ. Lord, we want all of Jesus Christ, and we want all of Christ communicated to us by the Spirit of God. So we ask that as we open up the Word of God, You would show us Christ, we would fellowship with him and receive him. Lord, that non-believers would feel their lostness if there are any here tonight, that believers would see the Word of God as a means of progress in their destiny, conformity to your Son. We pray that you would be with us as we hear from your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Our text tonight is Matthew chapter 23, verse 39. If you turn there with me. As you turn there, reading this text particularly, I thought about this question. What do the ruins of countries tell us? What are buildings, cities, empires once glorious in power and now nothing but rubble trying to tell us? I'm going on a work trip to Albania soon. Albania was a country that was under communist rule, fascist dictatorship. And a fascinating fact about Albania is that there are 133,000 bunkers spread out throughout the country. So the dictator at that time, poured millions and millions of dollars into building these little bunkers throughout the country to protect the citizens from what he thought would be a world war. And in so doing, he led his country into total beggary and bankruptcy. The only kind of employment was the building of these bunkers that are now just strewn and torn and filled with graffiti and damaged. We think about Albania, all those, the rubble of those different bunkers Japan, you think of Nagasaki and Hiroshima destroyed by atomic bombs and we have some remnants and pictures of people damaged by these bombs or even killed by these bombs in the hundreds of thousands. Friends, in the destruction and the wounding of cities and empires and buildings, there are lessons for us about vanity, foolishness, pride, and the accompanying fall. Well, tonight I want you to look with me at the ruins of a temple. God's people, in this text, keep rejecting Yahweh in the flesh. This Lord Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, makes a threat. Judgment is coming. As I mentioned, our text tonight is Matthew 23-39, but let's read, for the sake of context, from verses 37 all the way down to 39. Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem and He says, 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 Christ, Yahweh in the flesh, threatens to leave. He's been rejected enough. God's covenant people have sinned and spurned His only Son. His glory departs and judgment descends on them. Do you want to see evidence of this even now? Look at the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Look at the great ruins of that temple. That is contemporary evidence for you, brothers and sisters, of God's judgment on a people who will not trust in the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Friends, I want you to look with me at warning signs or a warning sign from an abandoned temple. Here's the point. If you continue to treat the Lord Jesus Christ with contempt, He will judge you by leaving you. It's what He did to the Jews. Again, look at that ruined temple. Friends, here's the goal tonight at the outset. This isn't necessarily a pleasant text like Hosea 5. It's not pleasant, but it's a necessary one. So for those of you who are non-believers here, I don't know your hearts, might even be a member, what we would want is for you to escape the judgment to come, to cry out to the coming judge and be saved. Believer, we would want to press for increased purity. Grace Covenant Baptist Church might continually host the presence of Christ and be a burning, shining light to the world. Before we look closely at verse 39, let's look together at the preceding verses, at Jesus as Yahweh in the flesh, the entreating Lord of sinful Jerusalem. Think about the context. What's above 37 to 39? Matthew chapter 23 includes those seven woes that Jesus levels at the scribes and Pharisees. He looks at these stubborn scribes and Pharisees who were hypocrites, who were concerned with cleaning the outside of the cup and not caring at all about the filthiness of the inside of their cup. all filled with hypocrisy, not dealing with God directly, presenting themselves as outwardly holy and zealous, but having no care about who they are on the inside, filled with lust and pride and greed. We have those seven woes at the beginning. And then we look at the three verses in question that we had read together, verses 37, 38, and 39. In those three verses, we're treated to three views of Jesus as Yahweh in the flesh in direct opposition to a sinful, rebellious, rejecting people. Look at verse 37. Jesus is the hen who desires to gather a stubborn Jerusalem under his wings. Jesus is the Yahweh of Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 11 and 12 and Psalm 36 verse 7. This is what Deuteronomy 32 verses 11-12 says, "...like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided them. No foreign god was with them." Psalm 36, verse 7, this is what it says about God. This is Jesus as the fulfillment of this. How precious is your steadfast love, O God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Look how Jerusalem has treated him throughout their entire history. Jesus makes all these constant overtures of love and look what they do. They hate him. They aren't just tired of the Prophets and messengers he sends they kill them and they take the only begotten Son of God And they seek to kill him, too. I Wonder if there are any here who are weary like these Israelites are of searching preaching, of preaching that penetrates the conscience, preaching that opens you up as a lost sinner bound for hell. Do you push back as they do against the same Christ who would have Jerusalem under his wings for protection? Are you of their same nature? Move on to verse 38, Jesus is not only the hen who seeks to gather Jerusalem under his wings, he is the glory departing from the temple. And we know that not just from verse 38, which says, see your house has left you desolate, but because it's connected to verse 39, for I tell you, you will not see me again. That's what causes that house or temple of Jerusalem to be left a desolate or a waste, the departure of Christ. would be abandoned and barren because he's leaving. Friends, one of the most astonishing verses in the Old Testament is Haggai chapter 2 verse 9. Remember in Haggai the people are encouraged, the Jews who have returned from exile, to build the temple, the second temple. God would be with them. And this is what is said in Haggai 2.9 about the second temple. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. You have to wonder, how could that be? There's no Ten Commandments, there's no Ark of the Covenant. It's a smaller temple than that second temple, or the second temple is smaller than that first temple. How could that temple be more glorious than the first temple? The answer is because that temple would house one to whom all those things pointed. Jesus Christ, the glory of God wrapped in flesh, God himself in the flesh. He was to be in that temple and make it more glorious than the previous one. What have they done to the one who adorns this house, this temple, this second temple with his glory? They reject him. They scorn Him. They want nothing to do with Him, His covenant people. Maybe you've read Ezekiel 10, which talks about the glory of God coming into the inner place of the temple and then backing away from the temple and abandoning the temple and leaving it desolate. Friends, that's exactly what's going on here. The glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ is leaving the temple desolate. Just look down to verse 1 of chapter 24. It's no coincidence that it begins with the phrase, Jesus left the temple, was going away. Jesus left the temple. Those are staggering words. Yahweh has left the temple. All the glory of this temple is gone. Desolation. We look at verse 39 again, our text in question. When Jesus says to Jerusalem, you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. There's a head scratcher. The misguided crowd said this at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but that was before this. What is Jesus saying here? Basically what he's telling these people is that this is conditional. Jesus is saying, I'm leaving and you will not see me, you will not know my glory until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Until you trust in me, until you own me, you won't see me. Jesus is the Psalm 118, verse 26, blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord, the worthy object of our trust. And friends, again, you know the destiny of that temple. You know what happened. That departure was final. Jesus left the temple, God's glory left, and God's wrath descended. It was destroyed. Again, go survey the ruins of that temple. Go look at that wailing wall, as I mentioned earlier, and see God rejecting and judging in wrath and obstinate, unbelieving people. Maybe some of you seated here, as I mentioned before, have the same nature as these abandoned Israelites. Maybe you've slipped into church membership. You aren't hosting the presence of Christ. You pledge some kind of allegiance to the God of the Bible by saying Jesus is Lord, but you have no personal dealings with him. You claim to know Jesus and yet he doesn't know you. You don't grieve the absence of his influence when sin arises or his distance that's caused by that sin. Jesus is extended to you Sunday after Sunday calling upon you to repent, to go to him with your sins and you ignore him. You're convicted of your sins, but you heal your wounds prematurely. By the time you go home, you've forgotten what you were convicted about at church. There's no closing with Christ. Maybe you experience His power in the sanctuary occasionally, but there is little to no life with Him outside these walls. How about you young people here? Some of you haven't taken on this Christ for yourselves. He's extended, extended, extended to you, but you will not take him up. And I hope you know, young people, members, non-members who are not Christians, that that's not just delay, that's not just indifference, but it's hostility, hatred. He's extending and you're of the same spirit as these Israelites. I will not have the lordship of this Jesus over me. He will not rule over me. That's what you're saying. So what can you learn from the ruins of that temple? What can you learn from Jesus bypassing that great building and pouring his spirit upon a house instead? As long as you treat the Lord Jesus with contempt like this, He will judge you by leaving you to yourself and He will cast you, body and soul, into hell. Look at the temple. You are as desolate as she was and doomed to the same end. For those of you who are devoid of the presence of Christ, Here's the call tonight. Jesus personally knows this judgment. Jesus said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. So for you who are apart from Christ, running head first toward the judgment of God, Jesus took on that judgment for you full force. He was forsaken, He was desolate, He was destroyed as the wrath of God was poured out upon Him in your place. And why was that? So He might rise again to become the chief cornerstone of a new and living temple, His people, the church. So friend, turn from your sin. Get in on this. Bring yourself and your sinfulness to the one who bore it for you in love and was smitten, stricken, and afflicted of God, cursed of God, so that you would never have to be. Receive Him as all your righteousness and His being punished in your place and you will host His presence and you will dwell with Him forever. We kind of mentioned this during the, someone had asked a question and so this will kind of run parallel with that actually. Are you exempt from warning here? It's true, God has bypassed the temple and in Acts 2 he pours out his spirit upon the church. We host the presence of God and we ought to praise him for that. But are we to kick back and relax? Do you see that in your New Testament, this approach of we have the presence of God, we should rejoice and then move on and coast and relax? When I personally look at my New Testament, I see a Christ who will never leave nor forsake his people, but I also see Revelation chapters 2 and 3, a Christ in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, the church. And this Christ will shut down the church if it is characterized by leaving its first love. He will spit the church, any church, out of his mouth if it is continually defined by lukewarmness. He will fight against them if characterized by doctrinal and ecclesiological compromise. Just Revelation 2 and 3. So Grace family, do we fear becoming a mere soup kitchen, a community center, a hollow shell of what we once were? Read through Revelation 2 and 3. Read through the scriptures and deal honestly and transparently with the Lord. This temple is made up of individual Christians. We ought to deal with God individually and look at our hearts. Yes, there are times of dryness and coldness, but when a whole church is characterized by that, it's a problem. So read through these scriptures. Deal honestly and transparently with the Lord about your state before Him. and then resolve to be a conqueror, as Jesus says to these seven churches concerning their different sin obstacles. You'll remember, He takes each church and He says, to the one who overcomes, to the one who conquers, I'll give them a new name, I'll cause them to eat of the tree of life, to the one who conquers. Friends, again, this living temple is made up of individual souls. I want to implore you, by the Spirit, let us determine as a church to conquer lovelessness for Christ, to conquer compromise in doctrine and holiness, to conquer lukewarmness. We were purchased by His blood to host His very presence and to conquer by His Spirit everything that would hinder this. Brother, sister, you were bought by the blood of Jesus Christ to be a conqueror over coldness and sin and all the things I've mentioned. Let's go to God and ask Him to do this in us. So friends, what does an abandoned temple have to tell us? Sinner, it tells you to turn from your wickedness. Say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Trust in the Son of God tonight. He will save you. He'll have taken all the condemnation, all the judgment God would place on you as the destroyed temple raised up for your justification. A Christian lets labor to entertain and please our host, the Lord Jesus Christ, by continuing, Grace Covenant family, continuing to conquer every hindrance by a spirit. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this warning text, a sober text, a serious text. Father, would you reveal to those who are lost in this place their lostness, if there are any. We pray that you would do it and that you would draw them to yourself and save them. Father, we do thank you for a church who seeks to conquer and seeks to be fully given to you. Lord, we pray that we would continue to conquer all manner of sin, all manner of sin obstacles. Give us power by your spirit to be a conquering church. We cannot do it without you. We thank you, Lord, that you call us to come to you, come to your son, to abide in him and to bear lasting fruit. Lord, we ask that this church would be marked by drawing near to Christ, dwelling with him, bearing fruit for his namesake. Lord, we do pray that the force of this text would be with us. Yes, delivered to the covenant people of God, but applicable to us. Cause us to be holy. We pray as a church for your namesake. Amen.