Reading Assignment: Matthew 23:29-39
Main Idea: Jesus’ heart for all to repent
Key verse: Matthew 23:37
Overview:
1. Judgment
2. Grief
3. Hope
Prayer:
1. Thank God for His faithfulness.
2. Acknowledge the wickedness of unrepentance and stubbornness.
3. Fear the Lord for His judgments upon those who resist His authority.
Transcript
Let’s pray and we’ll begin.
God, we approach You this morning, because You are a God full of justice, but also full of mercy. Thank You that You have sent Your Son as the atoning sacrifice for sin so that Your justice is satisfied, Your righteous anger toward our sin is finished and we are welcomed into Your presence as Your beloved children through faith in Christ. Thank You for Your great love for us. Thank You for calling us out of our sin into a new life empowered by Your Spirit. And we now look to You, that by Your Spirit, You would minister Your word to our hearts. Thank You, our Father, for Your grace toward us in Christ. Bless our time together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
The next reading assignment is Matthew 23:29-39. This is the last part of the chapter. And the main idea here is this: Jesus has a heart for all to repent. The key verse is found in verse 37 where Jesus declared these words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” This is a lament over the unrepentance of the Jerusalemites. They were unwilling to be reconciled to God through Christ, and thus Jesus grieves their unrepentance, because this is the heart of God and therefore the heart of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, He will declare judgment as He's been doing throughout this chapter. He will declare the final seventh declaration of judgment upon the Jews in this passage. But there is more than judgment and grief here. There is also a declaration of hope. Because God always keeps His promises, He will indeed one day convert the Jews to finally be repentant, and He will then restore His people to Himself. So those are the three parts of this passage: judgment, grief, and hope.
First the judgment. Again, this is the seventh of the woes that Jesus declares, and Jesus says, ”Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’” What Jesus points out is that the Jews of His day confessed that they were indeed the offspring of those who persecuted God's messengers, the prophets. Now, these Pharisees and scribes thought that somehow they were better than their ancestors. But Jesus tells them that they were not. He first points out that they are indeed from the same bloodline as those who murder the prophets. Verse 31 says, “So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.” Then Jesus says, “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.” He suggests that somehow they're complicit in their forefathers’ murder of the prophets. Then He explicitly points out that they will do the same things as persecutors themselves. So Jesus tells them, “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.” So then these false teachers of Jesus's day, they weren't only the descendants of the murderers of the prophets, they themselves will do the same things also. They are no different than their forefathers. Jesus has some scathing words for them. In verse 33, He calls them “serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” Jesus condemned them for their wickedness. Jesus also explains that they will experience the horrific sentence of hell. Jesus also declares in verse 36 that the judgment of God will come upon that generation. He says, “Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” That is, the generation that will kill and crucify God's messengers in that time. And indeed, God does bring about a severe judgment upon Israel for what they have done to Christ and the apostles. He brings about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in AD 70. It is completely demolished by the Romans. We read from the 1st century Jewish/Roman historian Josephus that over a million Jews were killed during this siege on Jerusalem. Those who survived were then enslaved. Others who survived were then dispersed in what became known as a Jewish diaspora. What does this all show us? God really does judge sin. As the Bible tells us, God alone is the Lawgiver and Judge.
God will hold everyone accountable for their violation of His law. And especially those who persecuted and even murdered His spokesmen the Prophets. But here's another observation about the character of God. God is not bloodthirsty. He will uphold justice. He will bring judgment, but He is not seeking to destroy humanity. Why would He do that? He created humanity. And so in Ezekiel chapter 18, we read this from one of the prophets of the Old Testament, the Prophet Ezekiel. Through his mouth, God declares this: “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?” God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Instead, He seeks for them to repent and enter into life. There's another verse of that same chapter, Ezekiel 18:32 where God says, “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies. Therefore repent.” This is the heart of God. He will bring justice because God is a God of righteousness, and He will never compromise His righteousness. But what God really longs for is for humans to repent and turn back to Him and live their lives in humble worship and submission to Him. What this shows us is that God's judgment is real. But that God also seeks for sinners to come to repentance. And this is what we hear from the mouth of Jesus. And so that's the judgment.
We now return to grief, and this is that key verse I read earlier where Jesus then declares, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” This lament of our Lord focuses on that last word that the Jews were unwilling. That was the problem. Their hearts were hardened. They were stubborn against the word of God. They were unwilling. Therefore, their judgment is certain. Jesus then declares, “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate.” The word for “desolate” in Greek is the word for desert or wilderness. What He means is that what they've built up is going to become ruins. The word “desolate” is also reminiscent of another word from the Book of Daniel, “desolation,” which is prophesied by the prophet Daniel with regard to a great ruin upon the city of Jerusalem in the future. And the destruction of the city in AD 70 is just the foretaste of the greater ruin that will come with the rise of the Antichrist. Well, that's the grief.
Then, at the very end, Jesus also declares hope. He then says in verse 39, “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” Now that last statement you heard before, because this is what the Jews were proclaiming as Jesus entered Jerusalem at the outset of this final week of His life. What Jesus is now declaring isn't just a repeat of what had happened at the triumphal entry. He is telling them that one day in the future the Jews will welcome Him with that same statement, but unlike the first time around, with understanding and with faith. This is something that will occur at Jesus’ second coming. What this shows us is that even amid the judgment of God, there is hope, because one day God will restore the Jewish people to a proper relationship with Him, that day of restoration and the change of heart is something that the Bible talks about elsewhere also. In Romans Chapter 11 we read that God will one day give the Jews a receptive heart when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. God will once again show His mercy upon Israel and convert their hearts so that they would be repentant and be reconciled to Him. In Romans 11:29, Paul also tells us that God will do this, “because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” That is, what God has promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He will most assuredly accomplish. Why? Because God is faithful, He does not change. He is steadfast in His character. So then indeed there's judgment upon those who reject Him and even persecute His messengers. God judges those who oppose Him. The Lord also then shows us that there's great grief in the heart of God because He Himself grieves the unrepentance of sinners. Then finally there is hope. There is hope of repentance in the future because God will change the hearts of the people of Israel, just as He had promised in the past. What all this shows us is that God really is the righteous God, that man really is sinful and stubborn and unrepentant, but that for all those whom God has chosen for salvation, He will one day give them a heart to repent. This means real hope. There's real hope of reconciliation with God and life eternal. And this is what Jesus shows us about the character of God through His own character. God is a God of judgment. He also grieves unrepentance. And He is the God who gives hope.
What can we pray about in light of these matters? First, we can thank God for His faithfulness. He always keeps His word. God could have just wiped out the people of Israel, but He hasn't, and He hasn't even down to this very day. Someone has said that the existence of the people of Israel today is nothing short of a miracle. That is true, because the people of Israel have been the target of many, many attacks, and not only attacks, but even attempts at genocide, and yet they've survived. Why is that? You look at all the ancient people of the land of Canaan and they do not exist today. They’re all gone. There are no Canaanites today. There are no Amalekites today. There are no Hittites today. There are no Ammonites today. And yet, when it comes to the people of Israel, they're still here. And for nearly 2000 years, they didn't even have a land of their own. It wasn't until the end of World War II that they once again occupied that piece of real estate we today know as Israel. But the point is this: God is faithful, and He is faithful to keep all His promises, not just to Israel, but even His promises to us. And we ought to thank God for that. Second, we can also pray in acknowledgement of the wickedness of unrepentance and stubbornness. If God has given you a heart or repentance, thank God for that gift of willingness to bend to God's word. Third, we should fear the Lord. We should tell the Lord that we fear Him for His judgments, that He will deal with everyone who resists His authority and that in our hearts, we are committed to not resist His authority. That's the lesson for today.
Let me pray for us and we'll wrap it up.
God, we thank You for Your faithfulness. You never change. Every day we awake in the morning and we look to You and know that You are the same God that You have ever been, that You are not capricious. You don't change Your mind. All that You've spoken remains the same, and that is such a source of stability for us every day. Thank You that we can cling onto Your promises daily and know that they are still good today. Your promises are everlasting, and You will keep Your word to the very end. Thank You. We also acknowledge that repentance and stubbornness of heart are forms of great evil. Oh God, we never want to resist You. We want to remain humble and yielded to Your word. We pray that You would keep us there, always ready and willing to bend to Your word. God, we fear You for Your judgments., for You will indeed recompense every man according to his deeds. You will deal with every last one of who is unrepentant. Father, You give the hope of repentance. Even to this very day, if a soul would repent, that is a sign of Your grace upon them and that they have a bright hope, not only in this life, but for all eternity. We see what is in Your heart through Jesus, Your Son. Thank You for Him who communicated all that You are to us. Thank You for teaching us this day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
All right, Lord bless you all. And that is the lesson for today. I should tell you that I'm going to be out of town the early part of next week, but Daniel is going to fill in for me for the morning devotion on Monday. So please join us for Monday, and then Wednesday I'll be back. And so I'll talk to you all then. Lord bless you and we're done for the day.