God Would, But Ye Would Not.

And we’ll see a little bit of that this morning. But just to give you a heads up of the next several weeks that we have services that aren’t dedicated to something else will be in Matthew 24. And I know a lot of people have questions about Matthew 24 because of the content. It seems for a long time. And our day is no different. But there’s always been a lot of interest and many questions regarding the second coming of Christ.

Is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? All of the signs and all these things. And people are looking mostly at, it seems that they’re looking more at headlines in the news than they are at the scripture to derive what they think is happening. And so we’re going to spend all our time in the scripture, of course. And hopefully, it’ll be a blessing to you.

And so I ask you to pray for me as I study these passages as well because the Lord knows I need help as we prepare these lessons and messages and things. This morning, we’re going to be in Matthew 23. And we’re going to try and finish this chapter. Matthew 23 has dealt with the Lord’s very pointed rebuke and judgment, really, a pronouncement of judgment upon the scribes and Pharisees.

And I’ll just remind you that the scribes and Pharisees were not heretics. They were not people who peddled or taught false doctrine, per se. The scribes and Pharisees were people who had a doctrinal statement that you would largely, and I would largely agree with. And yet, that was the group that was the recipients of the Lord’s most strict and most pointed rebuke and judgment, which should be a warning to us.

And as we’ve seen, the doctrine, even though we might not be a scribe or a Pharisee in the same way, the doctrine of the scribes and Pharisees is something that we have to be careful of and aware of. And that sermon, if you will, or that conversation, however it went down, is the context of where we begin, which is in verse 34. So the Lord is continuing in his conversation with the scribes and Pharisees and his judgment of them.

And so in 34, we’re still talking about the scribes and Pharisees. So keep that in mind, because that’ll be relevant to our study this morning. Verse 34, the Bible says, our Lord speaking, wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barakaius, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. So verse 34 to 37 is kind of a final pronouncement of judgment. The Lord says, he spends the entire chapter just absolutely castigating or ripping the face off of the scribes and Pharisees for their wickedness and their hypocrisy. And then in 34 to 36, he says, this therefore is your fate. All these things shall come upon this generation.

And then his tone, our Lord’s tone, completely changes in verse 37. Like if you read chapter 23, you might get the impression of scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites with the exclamation point. And you might get the impression that the Lord is speaking with gritted teeth and fire in his eyes. And maybe he was. But when you get down to verse 37, that is not the tone any longer.

He says, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Would you bow your head and pray with me this morning? Our Father, as we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we give you thanks for your goodness and mercy. We thank you for your tenderness and your compassion and pity. We thank you, Father, for your people who have gathered here today to hear your word. Lord, you know what each one of us needs.

You know alone what is the condition of each one of our lives and hearts. And Lord, you know how to meet that need from just a single passage of several verses to each person that stands in need this morning. Lord, there might be some among us, no doubt there are, who are in great spiritual need but have no idea, like these scribes and Pharisees, they have no idea whatsoever that they are in need.

Would you help them to see that this morning? Help us to understand your word and use it, I pray, and apply it to us in our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Now you’ll notice in verse number 34, the Bible says, the Lord speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, behold, wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes. So here’s what the Lord is saying here. He has just pronounced judgment on the scribes and Pharisees, and you can start to see, even in verse 34, you can start to see the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because if the Lord wanted to pronounce judgment upon the scribes and Pharisees, or any people, for that matter, say for instance, you take an example, the Ninevites, you remember Jonah and the Ninevites. If the Lord had a heart, if he had a heart and a desire to render judgment upon them, whether it’s the scribes and Pharisees here, Jerusalem, like we see in verse 37, or whether it’s the Ninevites or some other group that was at some point in scripture judged, if he wanted to do that, he did not have to send prophets and wise men and scribes to warn them.

If the Lord had a heart to do that, and he wanted to judge them, and he desired their destruction, he could have done that without warning them in advance. But repeatedly, when you read the Old Testament, I know people have the impression that the Old Testament is just laws and rules and God’s a mean God and that kind of thing, but it is revealed over and over, even when God is judging his people for their iniquity and for their sin, he inevitably, and he always sends someone prior to that judgment to warn them, and he gives them an opportunity to repent and to mend their ways before the judgment falls.

And this is exactly what the Lord is describing here. Now remember, in verse number 34, we’re at the very end of the life of Christ. He is in just a few days, he’s gonna have this Olivet Discourse in chapter 24 and chapter 25, and when you get to chapter 26, we’re at the Last Supper. So we are just literally hours, maybe a few dozen hours from the beginning of the end of Christ’s life that was foretold.

And even though we’re that close, think about what the Lord is saying here. He’s not talking about so much about the prophets and the wise men and the scribes that he sent to Israel prior, although that’s true. He uses the present tense of verse 34, I send unto you prophets. So the idea is he’s looking ahead into the future because really the Lord is going to send prophets and wise men and scribes to the scribes and Pharisees yet again, even after his death and resurrection.

And we see them, the people like Stephen, who preached a sermon to the Jews and the scribes and the Pharisees in Acts chapter seven. We see James, who is a pillar in the church, one of the disciples, James, the brother of John, in Acts chapter 12, who was also one who preached to the Jews. We saw Peter, we saw the other 11 disciples who the Lord sent to preach to the scribes and Pharisees and call them to repentance and to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then later we see Paul doing the same thing. You remember, even in the end of the book of Acts, Paul stands on the stairs of the fortress and preaches to the Jews. And then he’s brought before the council, again, preaches to the Jews. That was because God sent him, Christ sent him to do that.

Why? In each case, the Lord sends someone to warn of impending judgment before the judgment falls because it is not the heart of God to cast judgment. That is not his desire. His desire is to save. And so that’s why he warns. You know, that’s why none of us, none of us should look lightly upon the warning that God gives us about judgment. You know, that is a biblical truth.

For every person, the Bible says, he that hath the son hath life, and he that hath not the son of God hath not life. And so what is that? You know what that is? That’s a warning. And I know this world absolutely hates warnings. They want affirmation at all times. But remember, the warning itself is mercy. The warning itself is mercy. Now what this world really wants is they don’t want the warning, they want the pass.

Right? That’s exactly what they want. They want to exist as they are at this moment and then just be accepted. But the Lord, he demands repentance and faith. And so yes, the Lord comes to us and he gives us a warning and he lays out a requirement of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. But you can see his mercy in the fact that he sends people to warn us if he did not care.

If he wanted to judge us, he would do so without warning. There’s no requirement upon God to warn anyone. But notice he says, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes.

Prophets and wise men and scribes. So this is, in this history, this is talking about the church. This is not just talking about the clergy, the preachers of the land. This is talking about you guys, all of us. He said he would send prophets. Now you could say, well, the prophet refers to the preachers, right? The pastors of the churches who are gonna be preaching and maybe the missionaries, the evangelists or whatnot that are gonna come after this from what we know in church history.

Yes, maybe that’s true, but it’s not just those. It’s also the wise men and it’s also the scribes. In our previous study in Matthew, we’ve seen that there are scribes that are instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. How many of you remember that phrase? And we looked at it. You know what that’s talking about? It’s talking about you. It’s talking about anyone who knows the word of God and tells other people the word of God.

And you know what? People like you and me, people who weren’t clergy, have suffered due to the persecution that the scribes and Pharisee type have exercised upon them. Just take a few examples that I mentioned a minute ago. In Acts chapter seven, you see Stephen preaching. Stephen wasn’t a preacher. You know what Stephen was? He was a deacon, right? He wasn’t ordained into the gospel ministry as we like to say in these days, although, but he wasn’t that.

And yet he was giving testimony. He was one of these voices of warning and he was stoned to death by these same people. Acts chapter 12, you have James. Now James was a leader. He was among the disciples, the brother of John. Herod killed James. You know why the Bible says that? We won’t look at it right now, but Acts chapter 12 verse three says that Herod killed James because he saw it please the Jews.

That’s why James died. You go to Acts chapter 22, you can see Paul himself. In fact, if you would take a peek at Acts 22, Acts 22 verse 19, I wanna show you this.

Acts 22 verse number 19. This is Paul speaking of himself now. Acts 22 verse 19. The Bible says, and I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee. Paul did the very thing we’re reading here. As a Pharisee, he was responsible for, as it says here, scourging the people scourging in the synagogues, those that believed on Christ. Then you go to, if you would look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse number 24. This is also Paul speaking. Notice what he says, of the Jews, five times received I 40 stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods. Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day have I been in the deep. So not only was Paul responsible for the scourgings and the beatings in the synagogues, like our Lord is talking about in Matthew 23, he was also one who received it.

That’s what’s interesting about Paul. He got it on both ends. He fulfilled both sides of this back in Matthew 23. And these things that we read here, so we can see what the Lord said when he would send prophets, wise men, and scribes actually did come to pass in biblical history. And we have several examples of that. And that doesn’t even count all of the examples that aren’t recorded in scripture.

Now notice what it says in verse 35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood which shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel. That’s in Genesis chapter four.

Unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barakias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar. Now look at a few things here. Abel. Why was Abel killed? Now remember, Abel, Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and Eve. So we’re going way back. Here’s what I want you to see. Persecution of believers in Christ goes all the way back to the first naturally born people that were ever created, that were ever made.

Cain and Abel. One of them killed the other. And Cain killed Abel, the Bible says in 2 John, Cain killed Abel because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous. I think it’s 1 John 2 19 if I’m not mistaken. Cain killed Abel because his own works were evil but his brother’s righteous. You know what Jesus said? Blessed are you when men shall persecute you for righteousness sake.

You know why Cain killed Abel? Because Abel was righteous. And that offended Cain. So you know what he did? He put him out of his misery. And that somehow made Cain feel better. You know what Cain is? Cain is the first Christian persecutor. Now I know Christ did not come at that point but you know what I’m saying. He is the first in a long line of persecutors that goes back to the very dawn of humanity.

Here’s my point. Persecution is something that has, that mankind has been practicing against all of the believers in the Lord from the very beginning. And it goes all the way through the Old Testament, all the way to Zacharias the son of Baruchias. He was the last one as recorded in scripture. And it goes, that line also passes through the scribes and Pharisees. And it actually culminates in the scribes and Pharisees.

You know why? Because of the object of their hatred, the Lord Jesus. There’s none more righteous than he. So he stands as the pinnacle. And yet the persecutors have always persecuted from Abel all the way to the Lord Jesus himself. And then after that, the Lord tells us that’s gonna happen. Now look at the verse again. It says, Zacharias son of Baruchias whom ye slew. Somebody read that.

Whom ye slew. Whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Who is the ye that killed them? But he doesn’t say whom your father slew, because that would make sense, right? He says, you killed them.

You know what the Lord is doing? He’s taking this persecution and he is imputing all of that upon the scribes and Pharisees because they’re at the culminating point right now. And he’s imputing all of these people’s sin to the scribes and Pharisees. And he’s gonna judge them for it. And he says, you did that. Your ilk did that. The Lord Jesus himself will suffer persecution, a form of persecution of this same group that goes back to Cain who is of the devil.

That’s what the Bible says. And that’s why he killed his brother. And the scribes and Pharisees are, you read in the verse just 33, generation of vipers, the devil, right? They were being influenced by the devil. Let me explain something to you. Did you know there are people who named the name of Christ who persecute other Christians?

Did you know that? I have been the object, I mean, not that I’m anything, but in my life, I’ve been the object of persecution from people who named the name of Christ. Let me tell you something. A person who calls themselves a Christian and goes by the name of Christ and takes the Lord’s name upon them in that way that persecutes another is showing that they work for the devil.

Just mark it down. It is an evidence that that person is not born again, but is of the devil. And this is a truth throughout history. Remember, Cain was not a non-religious man. He was giving a what? An offering. The scribes and Pharisees are not non-religious. They are very religious, and yet they’re the persecutors. Those who killed Zacharias, the son of Baruchitus in 2 Chronicles 24, you know who killed them in the temple?

They were the religious people of the day. Listen, people now name the name of Christ and also persecute believers in Christ. That happens now, and it’s happened throughout history. That’s a mark that you’re a child of the devil. You’re of the devil, right? But this is something that’s been going on a long time. That’s kind of the background. This is how the Lord views the scribes and Pharisees.

It’s not just what they did. It’s they are the stand-in for this wicked practice that’s been happening since Cain. But I want you to notice also that the Lord nevertheless sends his servants to warn them, and he sends his servants into places where he knows they will be mistreated. He says in verse 34, I send unto you.

Hate to be that servant, just saying, right? Does Jesus send his servants to warn people in situations where he knows they will be persecuted? Yes. Is it a mark of God’s displeasure? No, no. Indeed, he sends them, and sometimes the Lord needs soldiers that are gonna go into the heat of the battle because he has a mission that he needs them to do in that difficult spot where they might suffer harm.

Let me tell you something. If you’re a general or a commanding officer in the United States military, if there’s a mission that must be accomplished that is vital, do you put that mission before the welfare of those under your command, or do you put the welfare of the mission ahead? The mission. And so that’s what the Lord does with his servants. Yeah, sometimes we serve him, and it’s hot, it’s hard, but he sends us to do it nevertheless.

Look at verse 37. Or verse 36 says this. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. And then the Lord says, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets has stonest them which are sent unto thee. How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Now, you read verse 38, but connect that to verse 36 because their house being left desolate is the judgment that Jesus says will come upon this generation because of what they’re doing to all of God’s prophets and wise men and scribes. Now look if you would at Luke chapter 19. To get a background of this, we gotta look at Luke 19 real quick. Verse 41, Luke 19 verse 41.

Now they call this Palm Sunday. And they call it Palm Sunday because it’s supposed to represent, we don’t follow the Christian calendar, the Christian liturgical calendar, which is what Palm Sunday is about. But they call it Palm Sunday because this is supposed to represent the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem in his triumphal entry. Remember they had the palm branches and they laid it on the tree. And they called it Palm Sunday because it’s supposed to represent the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the ground.

Now I hate to break this to you, but there’s nowhere in scripture that says that he entered Jerusalem on the first day of the week. The Bible just doesn’t make it that clear. But I digress.

But that’s what we’re reading in Luke 19 verse 41. And when he was come near, now this is his entry into Jerusalem, he beheld the city and wept over it. And we hear it as, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee. But in this case, it actually says he wept over it. This is one of only two times in the New Testament where you see Jesus weeping.

And of course, you know the other. It’s the verse everybody wants to memorize, John 11, 35, at the tomb of Lazarus. Now notice verse 42. Saying, if thou hadst known even thou, thou wouldst have ceased in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace. But now they’re hid from thine eyes. The Lord is weeping while he’s saying it. Have you ever said something and tears are coming down your face?

This is how the Lord is speaking. What kind of attitude? Do you see Christ with his teeth gritting and fire in his eyes and just waiting for the day? No, you do not see that at all. What you see is not the Lord filled with anger, but pity. He’s weeping while he is pronouncing judgment. You see that? Mercy and truth. We cover that in the Psalm, right?

Mercy and truth. He’s weeping while he’s giving them truth, while he is pronouncing judgment. This gives us a glimpse into the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what he says in verse 43. For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and encompass thee round that surround thee and keep thee in on every side and they shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Now, pay close attention to this. You know what the Lord is talking about here? The destruction of Jerusalem. Approximately 40 years from the time the Lord speaks this, Jerusalem will be obliterated by Titus, the son of the Emperor of Rome. As a result of a war, one of the Jewish wars that started in 68 or 69 will go to 73 AD. Jerusalem will be flattened. I wanna read you something, a summary of that destruction.

The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was above all a human catastrophe. When the Roman army under Titus surrounded the city, hundreds of thousands of people were trapped inside, many of them pilgrims who had come for Passover and could not escape. As the siege tightened, food supplies collapsed. According to Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, famine spread so severely that families were torn apart by hunger and ordinary social bonds broke down under desperation.

Disease followed starvation and the streets filled with the dead and dying while the living struggled simply to survive another day. Violence came not only from the Romans outside the walls but from within the city itself. Rival factions among the Jewish defenders fought each other, sometimes destroying food stores and killing fellow inhabitants, which only deepened the suffering. When Roman forces finally breached the defenses, the result was brutal and indiscriminate.

Soldiers killed large numbers of civilians and many who tried to flee were cut down. Josephus describes mass crucifixions outside the walls as prisoners were executed in full view of the besieged city, a grim spectacle intended to break any remaining will to resist. Actually, Josephus says that you could not find a tree of size enough to crucify someone. They had all been felled to be used for crucifixion.

For many, for a large distance around Jerusalem. When Jerusalem fell, the destruction did not end with the battle. The city was burned, including the temple, and survivors faced grim fates. Many were killed outright. Others were enslaved, forced into labor, or sent across the empire. Families were permanently separated and an entire population was uprooted. By the time the Romans completed their campaign and later crushed the last holdouts of Masada, that’s in existence to this day, you can visit it, the fortress at Masada, the land had been devastated and its people scattered.

The fall of Jerusalem was not merely the loss of a city but the suffering and displacement of a people on a massive scale. That’s what the Lord is talking about here. He’s saying in 40 years, you are going to be laid even with the ground. Your enemies are gonna come and your little children are all gonna be killed and the temple is gonna be destroyed. Look at 44.

And shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another. Notice this, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

The destruction of Jerusalem happened as a result of the judgment of God upon the Hebrew people that rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what he’s saying. That’s terrible. When the Lord says back in Matthew, when the Lord says, let me get back there myself.

In Matthew 23, he says, all these things shall come upon this generation. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. He was not joking. Even though all of that is true, even though he’s pronouncing judgment and very severe judgment, he does so with tears running down his face.

He does so with tears running down his face, crying out, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stone us them which are sent unto thee. Look at it, how often would I have gathered thy children. You know what he’s expressing? The Lord Jesus is expressing his desire. This is what he wanted. He wanted them to repent. He wanted them to not suffer that judgment. In other words, that judgment, though performed, was not his will.

His will, he says, how often would I have gathered? That’s an expression of God’s will. The will of the Lord Jesus was that they be saved. That was God’s will. Think about this. Was God’s will done? No.

Because God’s will was their mercy. But the reason God’s will was not done is because of what that verse says. And ye, what does it say? Would not. So in that verse, you know what you have? You have two wills. You have man’s will and you have God’s will. God’s will is, I wanna save you. Man’s will is no.

So even though the Lord pronounces the judgment, he does so with the heart that’s moved. Now be careful. Some people look at the love and mercy of God and think, well, in the end, God’s just gonna let everybody in. He’s not. He didn’t hear.

And then on the other side, the other extreme, people think that somehow they envision God as his teeth gritting in his fire and he’s breathing fire upon people and he’s glad that it glorifies him and he’s happy that they’re, no, he’s not that either. He’s weeping.

He’s weeping. Now, though God’s mercy longs to save, though God’s mercies longs to save the inhabitants of Jerusalem, save a sinner now, yet his judgment and his justice demand that it be performed. You see, both of these are operating at the same time.

To a person who does repent and does respond to God’s sending of these prophets and messengers, God’s mercy is there, ready to forgive, but to those who will not, like verse 37 says, and ye would not, God will still pass judgment. Judgment is a real thing. He cannot just pass over it because it’s a part of his very nature.

And we must remember that love and mercy are not a reward. We don’t earn God’s love and mercy. That is also a part of God’s nature, but I want you to see this, that God himself is grieved when he judges man. Listen to this, Ezekiel 33 verse 11. Say unto them, as I live, sayeth the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked may turn from his way and live.

Turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? You see this, verse 37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. All right, let me get this picture. The Lord comparing himself to a chicken.

No, he is, he’s using a chicken as an example, a hen. So a hen has little chicks, right? These little yellow chicks. Whenever there’s danger, this is what the Lord says now, whenever there’s danger, what does the hen do? And a lot of birds do this, but what does, in particular, what does the hen do? Have you ever seen videos of it or pictures of it? Maybe you raise chickens, brother Ari probably knows.

You know, raise chickens, just eggs, right? Yeah, he has an egg factory, but no chickens. Whenever there’s danger, the hen will spread its wings and come out of the hen’s nest. It spreads its wings and completely cover the chicken, the chicks, it says chicken in the text, but chicks, that’s what we’re talking about. What is that hen doing?

It’s protecting, but how? You know what the mother hen is doing in that case? She is, by nature now, sacrificing herself. That’s what she’s doing. Think about this gospel picture the Lord points out here. He says, this is what I wanted for you. I wanted you to come under my wings and I wanted to bear your judgment. I wanted to take your penalty. I wanted you, I wanted to take the judgment that you had rightly earned and deserved and spread my wings over you and my body be crucified and my life snuffed out and my life taken away so that you would be protected, so that you would be free.

You see, is that not what the Lord Jesus is doing for all of us right now? The Lord Jesus, the Bible says He tasted death for every man. He spread His wings. He said, come and get under here. I want to protect you. I will absorb the wrath of God that you deserve. I have done that. I have tasted death for you. I want to protect you.

Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. I will protect you from the judgment of God that you deserve for I will endure it in your place.

And you would not. The gospel call now is come to Christ, trust in Him. He has borne your punishment. He wants to receive you. Right, that is the gospel call.

But if we say no, He will judge us. Make no mistake. The Lord will judge those who reject Christ, just like He judged these scribes and Pharisees that refused Him. It is not He wants to, is that He will.

The Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter two, verse four, that God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. Look at John chapter five real quick.

John chapter five. John chapter five, verse 40. I’m in John six, I was like, that doesn’t make sense. All right, John five, verse 40. Or verse 39 says this, search the scriptures. Now remember, the Lord is speaking to the same group of people that we’re talking about in Matthew 23, the scribes and Pharisees. He says, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me.

And ye will not come to me that ye might have eternal life. You see, life is available. You see, you don’t have to look any farther than just so many things we can learn just by gazing upon the cross of Christ upon which He died for sinners.

Who did God love? Everyone for whom He died, for that was why He died. The Bible says He tasted death for every man. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world. On that cross, Christ was buried that cross Christ was bearing the sins of every human being, every human being. That means He loved every human being.

And you know what it also means? It means that He wants to save and indeed can save every human being. What is stopping that then? It is not, the problem is not God’s unwilling to save them. Indeed, He is willing. How do you know? Because He died in their place.

But the reason a person dies in their sin and perishes in hell fire is because they will not come to Him. And the reason they won’t come to Him might be diverse, might be varied, but they won’t. The bottom line is they won’t. And so the thing that the Lord Jesus wants, He doesn’t get.

And the thing that they want, they get. So in that way, in some weird kind of paradox of this universe and God’s dealing with us, God’s will is not done.

But I’ll tell you something, God’s will is always best. In our daily life as a believer, but also as an unbeliever, God’s will is best because He wants each and every person in this room to be saved. How do you know? Because Christ died for you. He tasted death for you. He loves you. He doesn’t want you to be saved because He died for you. That’s how you know.

So if you perish and you die in your sin without Christ, you’ll do so against and contrary to by stepping over what is God’s will. Where do you stand with God today?

Do you know for certain that you have eternal life? I wanna finish in Matthew 23, the last verse. And this verse is a doorway into chapter 24. In fact, I could probably cover this tonight as we get into chapter 24, but I’m gonna cover it now.

The Lord Jesus says at the very conclusion of His pronouncement of judgment, He says this, for I say unto you, He’s speaking to Jerusalem, verse 37, I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Did the Lord judge the Hebrew people because they rejected their Messiah? Yes. Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem was the effect of that judgment.

Is that the final word on these people, the Hebrew people? No, why not? Because the Bible says in Romans 11, 29, that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. That which He has promised to Israel will be done to Israel. In other words, what do I mean by Israel? Because that’s a big topic, Israel, Israel’s not Israel. The same, it will be done to the same people that we read that rejected Him, that were judged, that same ethnic group.

The Lord will accomplish, because in verse 39, He’s talking about the same group, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, that’s the same group that rejected Him. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. So this coming of Jesus Christ, He’s speaking prophetically here of Jerusalem and those that inhabit Jerusalem. This is talking about in the day that He returns. You know, they’ve already said, if you go back at the triumphal entry in Matthew, they’ve already said, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, and now we’re here.

In other words, the Lord is looking forward to a day when Israel, the same people, group that rejected Him, will turn to Him and when they see Him coming, this is what Matthew 24 tells us, which we’ll study. When they finally see Him, they’ll say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. So here’s the point, the Lord is not done with them.

With those that rejected Him, He’s not done with them. His promise to continue and finish His work, in fact, Romans 11 says that all Israel will be saved. When Christ returns, they will believe. They will believe.

And this is a literal, visible, visible event, yet future. And verse 39 sets a doorway, because it’s talking about the repentance of Israel in the last day. They’ll finally do the will of God, right? They’ll finally do the will of God, but it’ll take a lot of judgment to get them to that place of repentance.

So I wanna go back to my original question with you. You know, everyone in this room knows that Christ died for sinners. I’m here to tell you, according to the scripture, He died for you. He is that mother hen that bore your punishment. Have you put your faith in Him? Have you trusted in Him for your soul’s salvation and for the forgiveness of your sin? Are you safe from wrath through Him?

Do you know that for certain? If not, I wanna tell you something. It is not God’s will that you perish. It is not God’s will that you are judged. He doesn’t want to judge you, but He will. He didn’t wanna judge Jerusalem, but He did.

And so it is now. So I implore you to do the will of God. Heed His call that He calls to you to come to the Lord Jesus and trust in Him. Listen, if you come to Jesus Christ and trust in Him, I promise you, you will find a Savior. You will find the weeping Savior ready to receive you.

The Savior that wants you to be saved. Let’s pray.