Let's open our Bibles now to the study of
the Word of God, to the 19th chapter of Luke, Luke chapter 19. And we are returning to the text of Scripture
that describes what is commonly known as our Lord's triumphal entry, His entry into Jerusalem
for the last time where He is hailed by the crowds as the Messiah. It begins in verse 28. Let me read this text again to you. This is part 2 of what we began last week. "After He had said these things, He was going
on ahead, ascending to Jerusalem. And it came about that when He approached
Bethphage and Bethany near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples
saying, 'Go into the village opposite you in which as you enter you will find a colt
tied on which no one yet has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying
it?' thus shall you speak, 'The Lord has need of it.' And those who were sent went away and found
it just as He had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners
said to them, 'Why are you untying the colt?' And they said, 'The Lord has need of it.' And they brought it to Jesus and they threw
their garments on the colt and put Jesus on it. And as He was going, they were spreading their
garments in the road. And as He was now approaching near the descent
of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully
with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the King
who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.' And some of the Pharisees and the multitudes
said to Him, 'Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.' And He answered and said, 'I tell you, if
these become silent, the stones will cry out.' And when He approached, He saw the city and
wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make
for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes, for the days shall come upon you
when your enemies will throw up a bank before you and surround you and hem you in on every
side and will level you to the ground and your children within you. They will not leave in you one stone upon
another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.'" This has to be the most unique, the most unparalleled
coronation ever. First of all, as we noted last week, it is
humble in all its aspects and that is unique for a coronation. But beyond that, it is also unique because
there is such irony in it, such stunning contrast between the commendation of Jesus by the people
and the condemnation of the people by Jesus. On the one hand, it is large and enthusiastic
acclamation and admiration. On the other hand, it is shallow and hypocritical. On the one hand, it is generated by the people's
joyful hope of a immediate victory over their enemies. On the other hand, it is met by the King's
sorrowful pronouncement of disaster and doom in the coming defeat by their enemies. On the one hand it is the people's eager desire
to enjoy the glories of total triumph and the arrival of the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, our Lord pronounces on
them the agonies of total conquest in the arrival, not of the Kingdom of God, but of
the judgment of God. The contrast between what the people expect
and what they will receive is vast. The contrast between the attitude of the people,
one of joy; and the attitude of Jesus, one of sorrow, couldn't be more distinct. The words of the people are words of celebration. The words of Jesus are words of condemnation. The people expect the best. He pronounces the worst. They want exaltation. He promises devastation. They expect a conquering hero. They get a condemning judge. Surely there has never been a coronation like
this where at the very event itself, the King being offered the throne, refuses it and turns
on His people to bring destruction. There's never been a coronation like this. As we return to the event, a little bit of
background history. A few weeks before this, Jesus had performed
one of His most notable miracles, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It occurred in Bethany, that little village
two miles east of Jerusalem on the road to Jericho. Enough time had gone by that Lazarus had well
circulated in the world and everybody essentially knew of this remarkable resurrection. After raising Lazarus from the dead a few
weeks earlier Jesus then left Judea and the surroundings of Bethany and Jerusalem to head
north into Galilee. He had spent a few weeks in Galilee and now
has begun moving south. He comes across the Jordan to the east, down
through Perea east of the Jordan, a little north of Jericho, crosses the Jordan to come
back on to the side of Judea, enters the city of Jericho. By now He is surrounded by a large crowd. There's a steady flow of pilgrims coming that
way anyway to the Passover. It could have as many as two million Jews
in and around Jerusalem at that time, a steady flow and the crowd around Him larger than
most, of course, because of who He was and the miracles He had performed. And the crowd would grow and grow as more
pilgrims joined the stream. Spent two days in Jericho, that city down
by the Dead Sea at the foot of the great mountain that ascends to Jerusalem; there He had healed
two blind beggars and saved them from their sins. They were now His disciples and joined the
crowd to follow with Him. He also brought salvation to the home of the
chief tax collector there, a man named Zacchaeus who in a demonstration of his transformed
heart acted with generosity toward everyone he had stolen from. And so, after His experience in Jericho and
the salvation of those three it is time to ascend the hill to Jerusalem. It's almost 4,000 feet up, about seventeen
miles to Jerusalem. He walked that path. It was a road, really. It has always been a road, but it now was
a Roman road and the Romans had paved it and turned it into a military road and it was
carefully guarded. Up that road came Jesus, not alone by any
means, but surrounded by His disciples, His apostles, those who truly believed in Him,
those who were curious about who He was and an accumulating crowd of pilgrims. In John chapter 12 and verse 1, we are told
that He arrived at Bethany six days before the Passover, six days before the Passover. That would put it on Saturday, since the Passover
was on Friday. On that Saturday when He arrived in Bethany,
a supper was given in His honor. John tells us the story of that supper in
chapter 12. That night, that Saturday, He had only six
days left before His crucifixion, six days before the hard, cruel walk carrying the cross
up to Golgotha, six days before the spitting and the mocking and the hating and the beating
and the nails and the thorns and the sin-bearing and the God-forsaken experience of being crucified
as God's chosen Lamb fit for sacrifice, only six days left. He seeks the fellowship, the love, the affection,
the encouragement, the comfort of familiar friends, the disciples and His dear friends
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus who lived in Bethany. But even there the fellowship is marred because
Judas is there, ever present with stinging stabs of betrayal, a constant reminder of
what was to come. On the next day, the Sunday of that week,
the word by then had circulated all around the area, including into the city of Jerusalem
that Jesus was there at the house of Lazarus. And so John, chapter 12 verses 9 to 11, tell
us the crowd came flowing out of the eastern gate of Jerusalem, the two miles down to Bethany
to see both Jesus and this resurrected Lazarus. So Sunday was spent with His disciples, with
His friends and surrounded by the crowds who were so curious to see the man who was dead
and the one who had raised Him. Monday, the next day, He enters Jerusalem. That is the day described here in this text. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is triggered
by His own words in verse 30. He says to two of His disciples, perhaps Peter
and John since He commissions those two in chapter 22 verse 8 on another task, perhaps
it was them, but anyway to two of them He says, "Go into the village opposite you, you'll
find a colt tied, untie it, bring it here. If they question you, say, 'The Lord has need
of it.'" That command launched His entry. He is in total control of every detail in
His life and ministry. He's on a divine timetable. He's doing things precisely when God wants
them done and as God determines they are to be done. He follows perfectly the will of His Father. He knows that He is about to start a massive
demonstration. The city is filled with these hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims who have come there. Everybody knows about Him first-hand, second-hand,
third-hand because of the three years of extensive miracles throughout the land of Israel. He knows that when this begins, it will escalate
rapidly. Some have estimated that the crowd surrounding
Him as He comes into the city could have been well over 200 thousand people. Now Jesus never allowed such a massive demonstration
in His entire ministry because He knew it would precipitate escalated fury and anger
on the part of the religious leaders who had wanted Him dead for a long, long time. A display like this would speed up everything
toward them completing their mission of His execution. Up until now, He didn't want it to happen. But now He did. Now was the time. This was the city. This was the week. In fact, Friday would be the day. And He sets this demonstration in motion to
move everything toward His own crucifixion on Friday because that's the day when the
Passover lambs were slain and that's the day He would be slain as the true and only Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world. His timing is impeccable. It is also the day, Monday, when the families
took the lamb they were to have slain on the Passover into the house, the lamb that would
become a pet of the family, endearing itself to the family to be then slaughtered as a
symbol of sacrifice for the sins of the family. And so He offers Himself, as it were, to the
family of Israel on the very day when they were taking in their lambs and He would die
on the very day when the lambs would be slain. His timing is also perfect because Daniel
9 verses 24 to 27 said in the prophecy that there would be sixty-nine times seven years,
weeks of years, sixty-nine times seven until Messiah would come and be cut off. Sixty-nine times seven is 483 years. They calculated years at 360 days a year;
483 years at 360 days totals 173,880. So from the beginning until the Messiah comes
to be cut off, you have this duration of 483 years of 360 days. That's prophesied in Daniel 9:24 to 27. When does it start? It started with a decree to rebuild Jerusalem. When was that? 445 B.C. Declared by Artaxerxes and precisely from
then until this week and this day is the 483 years. He comes in perfect fulfillment of Daniel's
prophecy. Everything is in line. And so He triggers the event Himself by sending
the disciples to get the animal which He will ride into the city. Though His coronation is humble, He comes
riding on the colt, the foal of an ass, the foal of a donkey, as the prophet said, and
though there are no crowns for Him, and though there are no dignitaries and there is not
the usual regalia that occurs at a coronation, and though the people are fickle and though
they are shallow and superficial and though they are hypocritical, and though they only
cry "Hosanna" to Him this day and soon after are screaming for His blood, in spite of the
shallowness and superficiality of this event, He is nonetheless God's true King. He is God's true King. And it manifests itself in this coronation
in three ways: preparation, adoration, and condemnation. Last time we looked at preparation in verses
28 to 35. The very fact that He sent them to get that
animal and to bring the animal and He rode in on the animal, as I pointed out to you,
is a fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, very specific prophecy. Matthew's account of the triumphal entry refers
to that prophecy, Matthew 21. John's account refers to that prophecy in
John 12. He comes vindicating that He is the Messiah
by the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Also, He demonstrates His omniscience. He knew about the animal, though He couldn't
see the animal. He knew where it was. He knew it was tied there. He knew what the conversation with the owners
would be like. He demonstrates again His deity and His messiahship
in those elements of the preparation for His entry. Secondly, we saw last time adoration, which
also points to His deity and messiahship, and we saw that in verses 36 to 38. He receives the worship and the adoration
that the people give Him. It comes from Psalm 118, part of the Hallel. This is a coronation Psalm. They are celebrating Him as God's great, glorious
King. They say, "Blessed is the King who comes in
the name of the Lord!" Matthew adds that they said, "Hosanna to the
Son of David!" Mark adds, they said, "Blessed is the coming
kingdom of David! Hosanna in the highest!" All of those things were being said. Obviously from the text, the disciples initiated
all of that. They were the ones, according to verse 37,
who began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice, thinking: Surely this is the moment
when He is going to come as the conquering hero, the conquering Messiah, set up the kingdom,
defeat our enemies. They start the celebration. The crowd catches the fever and they all begin
to cry out the same things, pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. He receives it. He takes it because He deserves it. So we see that He is who He is by way of preparation,
omniscience. Fulfilling prophecy He is who He is demonstrated
by adoration. He receives worship willingly because He deserves
it. Now the leaders see it as blasphemy. They don't think He deserves to be worshiped
and adored in this way, and they let it be known in verse 39. "Some of the Pharisees," and by the way, this
is the last time we'll see that word, or see them specifically in Luke's gospel. This is their final comment. "Some of the Pharisees and the multitude said
to Him, 'Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.'" They saw this adoration, this acclamation
coming to Jesus as blasphemy, as do all Christ rejecters. They're outraged at this messianic honor being
given to Jesus and being received by Him as if He is worthy of it. They know they can't control the crowd, it's
too huge. And it's exuberant, and in a sense, out of
control. There's only one who could do that. They know who that is, they go to Him and
they say, "Teacher," at least showing Him some respect, "rebuke Your disciples." They sure should be rebuked because they are
ascribing to You that which You are not due. They ask Jesus to silence His disciples who
are instigating this celebration and leading the adoration. His reply is the turning point in this event. It is a stunning reply and it takes us to
the third point. He demonstrates His messiahship in the preparation,
the adoration, and the condemnation. Verse 40:"He answered and said, 'I tell you,
if these become silent, the stones will cry out.'" And then He goes on to pronounce judgment. He vindicates Himself as the Messiah in preparation,
omniscience and the fulfillment of prophecy; in adoration, receiving worship; and in condemnation
He possesses the authority to pronounce judgment, and He knows the future. You see His deity here in knowing about an
animal that He cannot see, not visible to His eyes, being in a place, a precise place. He knows what only supernatural can know;
only God can know, about the present, where that animal is. He also knows what only God could know about
the future, the very judgment that is to come. He is then the Messiah, the omniscient one
who fulfills Old Testament prophecy, who knows things in the present that no one can know,
and who determines the future and has a right to judge. In John chapter 5, a most notable and important
text, Jesus declares these words, and they are specifically related to judgment. Verse 20, "The Father loves the Son," John
5:20, "shows Him all things that He Himself is doing. Greater works than these will He show you
that you may marvel for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the
Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but
He has given all judgment to the Son." The Son gives life. The Son takes life. The Son judges; He is the sovereign one who
knows the future. He is the sovereign one who brings judgment. From this point on, the scene moves from joy
to horror, from the highest to the lowest. They are crying peace, He speaks of destruction. They pronounce on Him glory, He pronounces
on them doom. The whole ending is stunning, it is shocking. It is tragic. For the first time He allows this kind of
event to take place and at its apex, He turns it in the direction opposite what the people
expect. They're adoring Him for what they want Him
to be. He tells them He will be something very different
than that. Now notice verse 40, "I tell you," for emphasis,
"I tell you, if these become silent..." Stop there. These people, if they become silent, if their
praise stops, all this praise, all this shouting, all this exaltation will end. It did. In fact, you don't hear any of it after Monday. You don't hear it on Tuesday. You don't hear it on Wednesday. The next time you hear the crowd is on Friday
and on Friday they are saying a very different thing. If you look over to the 23rd chapter of Luke,
you get a little glance. You could also look at Matthew 27 and get
the same. But in verse 18, start there, they all cried
out together. This is the mass of people gathered before
Pilate. They all cried out together, saying, "Away
with this man! Release for us Barabbas." Who is Barabbas? "One who had been thrown into prison for a
certain insurrection made in the city and for murder." They wanted a murderer to be released, rather
than Jesus. And Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, verse
20, addressed them, saying...addressed them again, "They kept on calling out, saying,
'Crucify, crucify Him.'" The same kind of mob hysteria. He said to them a third time, "Why? What evil has this man done? I found in Him no guilt demanding death. I will therefore punish Him and release Him. But they were insistent with loud voices,
asking that He be crucified and their voices began to prevail and Pilate pronounced sentence." If these become silent, and they will...when
these become silent...since these will become silent, the stones will cry out. It needs to be noted that the silence of Israel
has not yet been broken. The Tuesday of that week, when the crowd fell
silent, launched millennia of a refusal on the part of Israel to acknowledge Jesus as
their Messiah. How fickle they were. A few days later they're saying, "Crucify
Him, crucify Him." Give us a criminal. Give us a murderer. We don't want Jesus. They're still saying it these 2,000 years
later. When that crowd fell silent, that nation fell
silent...and they're still silent. The opposition to Jesus was so strong that
even after the resurrection from the dead, the praise of Jesus was never raised in the
city of Jerusalem, or in the land of Israel, except among the few thousand who were saved. When Jerusalem grew silent, Jesus said, "The
stones will cry out." Cry out, krazō , scream, future tense, when
in the future these people become silent, in the future the stones will scream. Screaming stones? What is that? What is that? It's more than just the expression of praise
from some inanimate object, as if God is to be praised by His creation, far more than
that. In fact, in the little prophecy of Habakkuk,
chapter 2, we have a very good parallel. In the prophecy of Habakkuk we have a statement
of judgment on the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans, the wicked, pagan Chaldeans. And the Chaldeans had basically prospered
as a society, but they had prospered at the expense of other nations, they had prospered
by extortion, they had prospered by usury, charging exorbitant interest rate, they had
prospered by murder and bloodshed. They had literally built their towns and cities
by the sacrifice and the slaughter and the abuse of other people. So Habakkuk, the prophet, is given a message
from God of judgment against them. I just want to pick out one verse; that is
in verse 11. "Surely the stone will cry out from the wall
and the rafter will answer it from the framework." Then verse 12, "Woe to him who builds a city
with bloodshed and founds a town with violence." The stones in the houses and the buildings
that they built were symbols of their wickedness. The walls of their houses and the timbers
of their roofs, plundered from others, gained by bloodshed and usury, scream of their wickedness,
scream of their guilt. And Jesus is saying the same thing here. There are going to be some stones who will
cry out against you as the stones in the past cried out of the guilt of the Chaldeans. All you had to do was look at their houses
and when you saw them, all their prosperity, all their edifices were testimonies to their
corruption and bloodshed. The stones cried out of their guilt and the
judgment of God upon them, and some stones are going to do the same in your case. That's explained in the next section, verse
41. "When He approached He saw the city and wept
over it." There are a number of words for weeping. One of them, one of the Greek words, is used
in John 11:35 over Lazarus, "Jesus wept." That is a...a simple word for weeping. This is a much stronger word, in fact this
is the strongest word in the Greek language. It would be equal to our word "sobbing, heaving." Very strong, the strongest, a heaving, sobbing,
agonizing, wrenching expression of sorrow; no stronger word exists. Jesus sees Jerusalem and He's racked with
agony. He begins to heave and sob. This is part of the tears and strong crying,
I think, that Hebrews 5:7 encompasses. He is agonized over their superficiality. You would think He would be happy with all
this attention at that moment, right? It all looked good. But He could see through it. He wept in the face of their hypocrisy and
their shallowness and their rejection in a few days which He was well aware was coming. And He wept because He knew what would come
after that. And He wept because He knew their damnation
was coming. Listen to what He said. "Saying," and this is sorrowful, heart-breaking:
"'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace.'" Not talking about peace with Rome, not talking
about political peace, not talking about internal social peace, He's talking about peace with
God. "If you had only known; if you had only known
the things that make for peace." What makes for peace? Repentance, faith in Christ, believing the
message of the kingdom; He had preached it from the very beginning. He preached repentance and the kingdom, how
to come into the Kingdom through faith in Him, repentance from sin. He had preached it all along. I'm not going to take you back through the
gospel of Luke, but you can go all the way back to chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter
7, chapter 8, all the way through and see Jesus offering them again and again and again
and again, the good news of peace with God. If you had known, if you had understood, if
you had embraced and believed this day. What day is He talking about? He's not talking about Monday, that day. This day, the time of My presence in your
nation, if you had only understood and believed in this incredible hour in which I have moved
among you, if you had only believed the things that make for peace, the salvation message. That's salvation language, peace with God,
reconciliation, the gospel. But unbelief had blinded them all the way
along. They chose to be unbelieving, hard-hearted,
self-righteous rejecters of Christ. He gave invitation after invitation after
invitation. They rejected them all and therefore they
rejected peace, peace with God. He had already pronounced doom on them at
the end of chapter 13. "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills
the prophets, stones those sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together
just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. You wouldn't have it. Behold, your house is left to you desolate." Then He added, "You'll not see Me until the
time comes when you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'" You're never going to see Me until you finally
turn and believe. That hasn't happened yet. The judgment pronounced here is still in place. Israel today currently is under divine judgment. Are they God's chosen people for a future
salvation? Yes. Will He preserve them as a people unto that
salvation? Yes. But currently they are under the same judgment
that launched against them by God in the pronunciations of Jesus here and began in its powerful expression
in 70 A.D., forty years later, with the destruction of Jerusalem. Since that time, Jerusalem has been trodden
underfoot to one degree or another by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles
ends. And we'll learn about that in Luke chapter
21. They made their choice. The celebration was superficial and He knew
it. In fact, He even says, "But now they have
been hidden from your eyes." Whatever this celebration means, whatever
is going on here, however you may be emotionally caught up in this thing, the truth is, you
have rejected Me, you continue to reject Me, and it is hidden from your eyes. The truth is hidden from your eyes, the gospel
of peace, the only way of reconciliation with God. This is not just a statement of divine judgment,
though it is an affirmation, it is a statement of their own self-imposed blindness. In fact, now they have been hidden from your
eyes. Right now, here and now, you're in the dark. In the future, they will not believe. For what was a chosen blindness becomes a
judicial blindness. They never believe. Read the record of Acts 2 through 7, Jerusalem
never believes. They don't believe now, they never have. They will not until the end time when they
look on Him whom they pierced, as Zechariah said, mourn for Him as an only Son, a fountain
of cleansing is open. Then they receive their kingdom. That's in the future. And Jesus then describes the judgment that
is coming, verse 43, "For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a
bank before you, surround you, hem you in on every side, level you to the ground and
your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another." Let me just break that down quickly for you. "The days will come upon you," that's an Old
Testament expression used many times in the Old Testament, Isaiah 39:6; Hosea 9:7; Amos
4:2; etc., etc., etc. "The days will come upon you," often used
as an Old Testament expression of coming judgment, coming judgment; it's just another time when
Jesus refers to coming judgment. Five aspects. Look at them. Number one...five aspects to this judgment. Number one, verse 43, "Your enemies will throw
up a bank before you," or better, "a barricade." When in ancient times you wanted to conquer
a city, you surrounded the city and built a barricade to keep everybody in and you starved
them to death. No one could get out. No one could get in. So you cut off the food supply, and if possible,
the water supply as well. They built a palisade, if you will, or a barricade,
a high barrier to seal off the city so that no one could go in and no one could go out. The Jews...They built it out of wood. Josephus, the historian, tells us they built
it out of wood and the Jews burned it down. So they built a wall around the city of Jerusalem. This is what Titus Vespasian did, according
to Josephus, the historian, in his writing, The Jewish War . That's the first feature. An enemy will come and build a barricade. That's exactly what the Romans did in 70 A.D. Second, verse 43, "surround you." The enemy then surrounds you at the point
of the wall. No one can go in and no one can go out. The city is sealed off from all supplies. Anyone who tries to escape is killed and thousands
on the inside eventually begin, and it doesn't take long, to starve and die. This all started in 66 A.D. The Jews revolted against Rome in 66. That brought the Romans. That led to the Roman siege in 70 A.D. The Romans built this great palisade. The Jews burned it down. They put up a big wall. They then put their troops there, completely
surrounding the city, fully cutting it off. That led to the third element, consequentially,
"hem you in on every side," sunechō , to press, to crowd from all sides, just escalating
the pressure, the pressure from all sides. Number four: "They will level you to the ground." It literally means to shatter against the
ground, to smash against the ground. That is to say, the city will then be sacked
and flattened and not just the city but your children within you. It's not talking only about infants, or little
children, tekna , your sons, your inhabitants. So what's going to happen? They're going to build a barricade. They're going to then surround them with their
soldiers. They're going to press. Eventually they're going to break through
when the people are so weak they can't fight, and they're going to smash and shatter the
population against the ground; and then smash the city and its wall to the ground so that
it cannot be rebuilt. This exactly occurred in 70 A.D., forty years
after Jesus gave this prophecy. Notice please verse 44, the middle of the
verse, "They will not leave in you one stone upon another." Those are the stones -- friends -- that cry
out. When you go silent, the stones will cry out. Forty years later, the stones that made up
that glorious city will lie on the ground as rubble, mute, screaming of the judgment
on Israel's unbelief. Five months the siege took. And the Romans overpowered the weakened Jews,
starving Jews. Roman soldiers rampaged through Jerusalem
basically slaughtering everybody, children, women, adults, except the strongest young
men which they kept for gladiatorial games. They destroyed the city; everything except
the western Wailing Wall, some of you have seen it there, a few other sections, massacring
everybody. The hundreds of thousands of people literally
were slaughtered. Josephus writes this, "While the sanctuary
was burning(the temple) neither pity for age, nor request for rank was shown. On the contrary. Children and old people, laity and priests
alike were massacred. The emperor ordered the entire city and temple
to be razed to the ground, leaving only the highest towers and the portion of the wall
on the west. All the rest of the wall was so completely
razed as to leave future visitors to the spot no reason to believe that the city had ever
been inhabited." And the stones cried out, screamed out of
judgment, total destruction. Our Lord concludes by reminding them why this
was going to happen. End of verse 44, "Because you didn't recognize
the time of your visitation." Visitation, e piskopēs , the visit of the
incarnate God for the purpose of salvation. Zechariah said when he heard all this was
going to happen back in chapter 1, "The Lord has visited His people for redemption." "The day of visitation" is an Old Testament
phrase used by Isaiah and Jeremiah and other Old Testament writers referring to the coming
of God, His drawing near to His people. Could be in blessing, could be in judgment. This visitation was in blessing and salvation. You didn't recognize that God was visiting
you for salvation, for redemption. You didn't recognize it. Was Jesus the Messiah? Absolutely. Was it evident that He was the Messiah? Of course. Was He the Son of God? Of course. Who else could do the miracles He did and
say the things He said. Yes He is the rightful King, fulfilling prophecy,
omniscient. Yes He has a right to receive worship. He's been given authority. He can predict the details of judgment and
execute them. The visitation of God had come to Israel. John puts it this way, "He was in the world,
the world was made by Him. The world knew Him not. He came unto His own, His own received Him
not." In the 20th chapter of Luke, starting in verse
13, the Lord is telling a parable and He tells about the owner of a vineyard who is God who
sends His beloved Son back to his vineyard, after his people have killed all his messengers. He says, "Finally, 'I'll send My Son. Perhaps they'll respect Him.' When the vine growers saw Him, they reasoned
with one another saying, 'This is the heir, let's kill him that the inheritance may be
ours.'" Threw Him out of the vineyard, killed Him. "What therefore will the owner of the vineyard
do to them? He will come and destroy those vine growers
and give the vineyard to others." Yeah, end of Israel's special time of visitation,
potential blessing; then comes the times of the Gentiles, development of the church until
in the future Israel repents. The people on that day who were celebrating,
many of them were dead by 70 A.D., out of God's presence forever in eternal punishment. Some of the younger ones, no doubt, perished
in the destruction of 70 A.D. The very walls of that city became the prison
in which those Christ-rejecting people were slaughtered by the pagans; and the rubble,
testimony from the stones, of their rejection of Christ. That's history and it's still going on. But it's not just Israel's history. Can I make it very practical for you? Rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord is catastrophic
for you, too. It's no less catastrophic for you than it
was for them. What about your day of opportunity? What about the time when you've heard the
gospel, when the gospel's been presented to you? The time when you've been told how you can
be reconciled to God? What have you done with your visitation? Have you recognized the time of your spiritual
opportunity or is the end going to be as catastrophic for you as it was for them? What are you doing about God's gracious visitation
in your life with the truth of the gospel? That's the question you have to answer. It's history. But it's a monumental lesson to the catastrophe
of rejecting Christ. Don't follow that path. Become one of His. Embrace Him as your Savior. Father, again we thank You for Your Word. Always, having proclaimed it, my heart is
filled with gratitude. The first thought is always "Thank You, thank
You," for this clarity, for this truth, for this warning, for this invitation because
it comes from You with such grace. It is a visitation intended for peace. May it be so in every heart here, we pray,
every heart, received, embraced, that sinners may be reconciled to You, making peace, making
peace possible because of the sacrifice of Christ. May there be no one here who faces catastrophic
and eternal judgment. May all respond to the visitation of the gospel
of peace, embrace the Savior and receive the hope of heaven and eternal joy. Now, Father, we say again it is good to be
in Your house and dwell together with those who are brothers. It is good to celebrate the greatness of our
salvation. We thank You that You have opened our eyes
to see the glories of Christ, that we don't stand with unbelievers, but with those in
faith; that death for us is no catastrophe at all, for there never will be any judgment. All our judgment was experienced by Christ,
who bore all the judgment for all our sin in His own body for all who believe. We thank You for the gift of life in Christ,
and we pray that no one here will refuse that in the day of visitation when that opportunity
is presented to them. Do Your work in every heart. Use us, Lord, to carry this glorious message
beyond the walls here to those who so desperately need it in our world. We thank You and we give You honor in Christ's
name. Amen.
