Let us turn to the chapter we
were reading in Matthew, the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
chapter 23, and I'll read for our text the closing verses from
verse 37 through 39. 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 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. Christ to lament. And the context,
quite remarkable really, it is a most solemn chapter. The Lord Jesus throughout is
denouncing the religion of the Pharisees. Those dreadful woes,
I think there are eight woes in total in the chapter. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites. And so the Lord repeats the word
over and over and over again. God's judgment once again would
fall upon Jerusalem because of the sins of the people. And this morning we were considering
something of Jeremiah's lament. The whole book of Lamentations,
of course, contains the record of the weepings of that prophet
he's often spoken of isn't he as the weeping prophet Jeremiah
what he witnessed of the terrible desolations of Jerusalem and
those words at the beginning of chapter 3 I am the man how
he felt it so personally and yet as we saw in that in that
portion certainly in the opening chapter he speaks of Jerusalem there in verse 8 of chapter 1
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned therefore she is removed all
that honoured her despise her because they have seen her nakedness
yea she sieth and turneth backward her filthiness is in her skirts
she remembereth not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully
she had no comforter and so forth the lamentations then of of Jeremiah
and now the Lord Jesus as he comes to the end of the solemn
chapter looks at Jerusalem and speaks again of Jerusalem so
I want us to consider this lament, the lament of the Lord Jesus
as we were considering the lament of the Prophet Jeremiah. First
of all to observe carefully who it is that is speaking here,
who it is that speaks the words, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem thou that
killest the prophets and stone a sandwich I 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." Who is the person then that speaks these words?
It is the Lord Jesus. It is the Lord Jesus. It is that
one who is God's, God's manifest in the flesh. He has two distinct
natures. Remember, he is never anything
less than God. He never would, he never could
cease being God. He is always the eternal son
of God's. But he became a real man. when
he was conceived by the Holy Ghost there in the womb of the
Virgin Mary. And what was conceived in the
Virgin's womb was not a person, it was a thing. That's what we're told in Luke
1.35, that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. That holy thing was the human
nature, the human body, human soul and it's joined to the person
of the eternal son of God that holy thing shall be called the
son of God and so here is one who is in his true nature God,
very God of very God and yet now he also has distinct to that
another nature, a human nature and yet he is one person. This
is the great mystery, isn't it? The mystery really of our religion. We need to remember that so we
remind ourselves again and again. And what we see surely in this
passage is the blessed truth of the reality of that human
nature. When we think of the human nature
of the Lord Jesus Christ he has a human understanding now of course as God he has a
divine understanding he knows all things he knows the end from
the beginning and yet we're told aren't we how he was born as
a baby grew into a child and then he grew into a youth and
into a man and we're told how Jesus increased in wisdom and
stature as he grew physically so he grew in his wisdom in his
understanding and he can say in the course of his ministry
concerning that great day the end of time of that day and that
hour he says knoweth no man no not the angels in heaven neither
the son but the father and yet as God he is equal to the father
but he is speaking there the person of the Lord Jesus speaking
in terms of his human understanding and as he has a human understanding
so he has a human will he says I came down from heaven not to
do my will but the will of him that sent me that is the will of God, the
will of God the Father. But in terms of his deity, he
has the same will as the Father. Because though there be three
persons in one God, that one God has but one will. There again we see that he has
a human will. and remember how we see it so
remarkably when we read of his strugglings in the garden of
Gethsemane as the hour draws near when he is to make the great
sin-atoning sacrifice and there is a man, a real man and he has
human feelings, human emotions and there's a sense in which
his human soul must shrink from all that is before him and he
prays to his father now he prays and all his prayer centers in
the will of the father oh my father if it be possible let
this cup pass from me he says nevertheless not my will but
thine be done oh this is the wonder of it the mystery of it
Christ's human will will always acquiesce in the will of God and yet he's he's equal to God
when we come to pray we always pray in terms or we should always
pray in terms of submission we want to submit to the will of
God we want God's way not our way the Lord has made that quite
clear in the pattern prayer the Lord's prayer and we are to pray
what we are to say and we are to pray thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven and so we pray for God's will but you know
in that remarkable prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17 there
at verse 24 we find Christ addressing the Father very much as his equal
He says, Father, I will, that those whom thou hast given me
be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. He can say
to the Father, I will, and he's using a strong verb, the strongest
verb he could use there as he speaks of his will, I will. that those whom thou hast given
me be with me. What a mystery there is. He has
a human will, yes, but he is never anything less than God
and there is a strange occasion in the course of his earthly
ministry. He's always subject to the Father's will and he always
acquiesces in what the Father wills. He has a human understanding,
he has a human will, and he has human affection and surely this
is what we see at the end of this chapter the reality of his affection
his human affection we see it on other occasions too in the
gospel in Mark chapter 10 where we read of the rich young ruler
who comes to him and addresses him master what's good thing
must I do to inherit the kingdom of God? The Lord deals with him.
We've looked at that passage on previous occasions and of
course the man comes and speaks of works and the Lord therefore
deals with him in those terms. He directs him to the Lord. He
had said what must I do? At the end of that same chapter
we have blind Bartimaeus and his approach is very different.
He says Jesus our son of David have mercy on me. He begs mercy,
but the rich young ruler says, good master, what must I do?
And so, whereas with Bartimaeus we find the Lord dealing in terms
of gospel and grace, he deals with that young man quite differently.
What set the commandments? But when we come to the end of
that account in Mark chapter 10, we're told how the Lord beholding
him, Jesus beholding him, loved him. He has an affection for this
man. And he says to him, what he must
do is sell all his goods and take up his cross and follow
the Lord. And the young man turns and goes
away sorrowful because he has great possessions. He's not prepared
to forsake all and to take up his cross and to follow the Lord
Jesus. But what affection! what affection
the Lord manifests there and we see it here in some measure
surely this is affection being shown to his own countrymen he
is a Jew he is born of the house of David
he is of the tribe of Judah and Jerusalem the great city of Judah
of course all 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 ye would not he says behold
your house is left unto you desolate there's real affection and do
we not also in a sense see it in the language of the apostle
when Paul is writing in the epistle to the Romans and remember how
from chapter 9 through 10 and 11 he speaks very much of the
Jews but how he begins that section in many ways a controversial
section those three chapters in which he is speaking of the
Jews and the rejection of the Jews and so forth I say the truth
in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow
in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh who are
Israelites. All what affection the Apostle
had for his fellow Jews. Oh, he was very much a Jew and
yet he was called to be the great apostle to the Gentiles. Well, Christ also loves his own
nation. He's a man. He's a real man. And that love, in a sense, is
confirmed in the parallel passage, the account that we have in Luke's
Gospel there in Luke 19.41 when he was come near the city we're
told he beheld the city and wept he wept over Jerusalem Jesus
knew real human emotions he weeps doesn't he also at the grave
of his friend Lazarus Lazarus is dead and there are his grief
stricken sisters Mary and Martha and others and wailing there
in all the brokenness of their hearts all the pain that they're
feeling in their souls and Jesus as a man he's touched these things
have an effect upon him he's no stoic when he comes to dealing
with these situations here we see then I say the reality of
that human nature he has emotion, he has affection,
he has human understanding, he has a human will and he expresses
it, how often would I have gathered my children together? how often
he would have done this? it's a will that's frequently
being repeated in a sense and yet we know, don't we, that the
divine will is one. I think I've said it before,
there's a blessed simplicity really when we think of the doctrine
of God. It's a great mystery, the doctrine
of God, that God is one and God is three. It's a profound mystery
and yet in the midst of all that there is a simplicity. Here O
Israel, the Lord our God is one. One Lord. and he dwells in eternity
and there's no sense of time in eternity there's no past or
present or future it's ever and always now and so there is a
simplicity in the in the divine will it is one God's will is
one he is in one mind and you can
turn him and what he so desireth even that he doeth we read in
Job 23 and the familiar words of Isaiah 55 my thoughts are
not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways for as the
heaven is higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts or what we see in this passage
I say again is not so much the the divine nature of the Lord
Jesus that he is God but we see the reality of his human nature
he is a man that man of whom we sang in our opening praise
a man there is a real man with wounds still gaping wide from
which rich streams of blood once ran in hands and feet and sides
that same man that lived and died and rose again in this world
now ascend it into heaven and there he is the great high priest
of our profession touched with the feeling of our infirmities
now we can sympathize with us now coming to the words that
the Lord is speaking here in this passage we need to recognize
that God's will can in no way be frustrated by the will of
man and yet the words that we have here might easily be misunderstood
Christ is saying how often would I have gathered thy children
together and he says ye would not he says ye would not now
God's will can never be disappointed and Christ's will always acquiesces
in God's will and God's will must prevail. Yea, before the
day was, he says, I am he, I will work and who shall hinder me? Nothing can hinder him, nothing
can prevent him. And what we see here really is
the foolishness of man's will. Now notice, notice the the pronouns here he speaks to
Jerusalem but in a sense he's addressing
himself really to the Pharisees or he speaks of Jerusalem we
should say he's not speaking so much to Jerusalem he's speaking
of Jerusalem because he speaks in the third person Jerusalem, Jerusalem thou that
killest the prophets and stonest them which were sent unto thee
how often would I have gathered thy children together so we have
thou and thee and thy but then he says at the end and ye would
not so he uses the third person because he's speaking of Jerusalem
but then at the end he uses a second person he's speaking to somebody
and who is he speaking to? he's not speaking to Jerusalem
he's speaking of Jerusalem and throughout the whole chapter
of course he is continually addressing himself to the Pharisees the
scribes and the Pharisees and throughout the whole chapter
we have that recurring second person plural ye ye ye ye scribes
and pharisees woe on you woe on you and as I said I think
there are at least eight woes he's denouncing the pharisees
again when we come to the words that we have here at the end
of the chapter and we're told on occasions the common people
heard him gladly the common people heard him gladly in Luke 8 and verse 40 we read
the people gladly received him for they were all waiting for
him but then Alas, the Pharisees! What do they do? Well, look at
the language that we have previously at the beginning of the chapter.
Verse 13, the first of the woes. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of
heaven against men. For ye neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. And here again it's really the
same people that he addresses in the 37th verse. You would not. All these scribes
and these Pharisees. Remember what we're told concerning
the man born blind in John's Gospel. That man to whom the
Lord doesn't only give natural sight. but really spiritual sites
because he comes to confess Christ at the end of the chapter but
now that man was put out of the synagogue and now even the blind
man's own parents were so afraid of what would happen to them They come and they say to him
in verse 19, Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How
then doth he now see? His parents answered them and
said, We know not. We know that this is our son,
and that he was born blind, but by what means he now seeth? We
know not. Would he hath opened his eyes?
We know not. He is of age. Ask him. He shall speak for himself. And
then we're told, these words make his parents because they
feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if any
man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Well that was the decree of the
leaders, the Sanhedrin, the scribes and Pharisees, that if any confessed
him, he was to be put out. Again, later there in John 12
42 we're told among the chief priests also many believed on
him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest
they should be put out of the synagogues and so we have these words or
Jerusalem Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest
them which I sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathers 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, or at the end you see every knee
is to bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory
of God the Father in that great day but you know in a sense there
was a harbinger of that day how does the Lord go on to speak
in the following chapter We're told how Jesus went out
and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him
for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said
unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you,
there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall
not be thrown down. And then his disciples come to
him there on the Mount of Olives and say tell us when shall these
things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming at the end
of the world and the Lord begins to speak but he he speaks initially
not of the end of the world he speaks of events that would come
to pass within that generation he speaks about the Romans are going to come
and they're going to destroy the temple and so it was it is
an historic fact the year 70 when the Roman general Titus
came with his legionaries and they sacked Jerusalem and destroyed
the temple. And isn't the Lord speaking of
that in verse 28? Where soever the carcass is there
will the eagles be gathered together. The eagles referring to the banners
of the Roman soldiers as they come and lay siege and destroy
the city. how solemn, how solemn it all
was that this should have come to pass. Or the blindness and
the hardness of the hearts of these wicked men who shut up
the kingdom of heaven to others. And in the mysterious providences
of God, of course, this is how things worked out, the Lord comes
to his own, he comes to the nation of Israel and they receive him
not. And there we see it unfolding in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Gospel must go first to the Jew, always beginning at Jerusalem,
and Judea, and Samaria, and then it goes to the uttermost parts
of the earth, and this a man Saul of Tarsus a Jewish Rabbi
himself brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a Pharisee of the
Pharisees he said, his father was a Pharisee, he was a Pharisee
he had great zeal, he would persecute the followers of Jesus Christ
and yet this very man that one of whom we read in Romans chapter
9 was to take the gospel to the Gentiles the remarkable truths that we
see in this solemn passage and even here as we come to the end
of the chapter well how does this apply to us
if the Lord here is weeping over Jerusalem if the Lord here is
rebuking scribes and Pharisees and denouncing them with terrible
woes, how does this relate to us and apply to us as Gentiles
other than the fact that we are the beneficiaries in that the
gospel has now gone out to the ends of the earth and it's come
to us? for a while as we draw to a conclusion
remember the fact that Jerusalem is in some ways an allegorical
place I'm thinking of the way in which Paul speaks of Jerusalem
in the epistle to the Galatians you remember the passage there
in chapter 4 of Galatians he speaks of Abraham and his two
sons one of a bondmaid, Ishmael, Hagar's son, the other of a free
woman, Sarah's son, Isaac, the son of promise. And then he says,
verse 23 in Galatians 4e, who was of the bondwoman was born
after the flesh. That was that was Ishmael, but
he of the free woman was by promise, that was Isaac, and what a promise
that was, the seed. He was a type of Christ. And
he says, which things are an allegory, for these are the two
covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,
which is Agar, for this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and
answereth to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with
her children but Jerusalem which is above is free which is the
mother of us all. Now what is he saying here? Well he's saying that Jerusalem
that stands there in Israel, it's there to this day of course
It's the capital of really the capital of Israel I know you
might say well that's Tel Aviv but I'm sure certainly the Orthodox
would say Jerusalem is the true capital and it answers to the covenant of works the
two covenants the one from Mount Sinai the one that genders to
bondage, the one that brings nothing but the conviction of
sin, there's no salvation in law and that's what we see in Jerusalem
and in the Gospel is a Jerusalem which is a bath and what is the language here?
look at the language, what the Lord says, He says at verse 37,
I would ye would not how often would
I have gathered thy children together you would not I would
ye would not isn't that in a sense Old Testament all covenant language
expressing man's duty that's what it expresses not so much
the purpose of God but what the duty of man was. Moses describes
the righteousness which is of the law that the man which doeth
these things shall live on them. That's what the law says. The
law continually says do and live, do and live. But men don't do
what the law says. I say I would, ye say you won't. well that's the language of law
do and yet the sinner does not do what the law commands and
cannot do what the law commands by the deeds of the law shall
there be no flesh justified in his sight in vain we ask God's
righteous law to justify us now since to convince and to condemn
is all the law can do, that's what what says in the hymn, and
it's true, it's true in scripture. 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 gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would
not. The Jerusalem that now is. But
how different is the language of the of the new covenants. thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power that's the language of the gospel thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power where the word of a
king is or there's power in that word Jerusalem which is above
which is free which is the mother of us all What does God say? The promise that we have back
in Ezekiel 16 and the end of that chapter. God says, I will
establish my covenant with thee and thou shalt know that I am
the Lord. Observe what the Lord says there
when he speaks in new covenant language. He says, I will and
thou shalt. I will and thou shalt whereas
here with regards to the Jerusalem that now is God says I would
and ye would not well that's the glorious power is it not
of the gospel of the grace of God there's only salvation there
from beginning to end, it's all the work of God, it's all the
work of grace. And that's the gospel, and the
salvation in that gospel for the Jew, yes, but now there's
also a glorious salvation for the sinners of the Gentiles,
those whom God knew nothing of, in a sense, in the course of
the Old Testament. The words that we have there,
Psalm 147, he sendeth, rather he showeth his word unto Jacob.
His statutes and his judgments unto Israel he hath not dealt
so with any nation. And as for his judgments, they
have not known him. Praise ye the Lord. But there
was Israel. What was the purpose of Israel's
very existence? Or from the descendants of Abram
must come the one who is Abram's true seed, a seed which is Christ. And once that seed has come,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is speaking here at the end
of this chapter, once Christ has come, now God's great purpose
is to be unfolded. in the New Testament age, the
day in which we're living the proclamation of the gospel of
the grace of God to the ends of the earth and God who now
as he sends forth that gospel doesn't just issue a general
call but there's that efficacious work of the Spirit, that effectual
call that comes into the souls of sinners when God says I will
and they shan't or that we might be those who do truly know that
great blessing to have heard that voice and to have been brought
to enter in, compelled by the grace of God to enter in. What solemn words say the chapter
concludes with. As the Lord speaks to these scribes
and Pharisees, Behold, your house is as it 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.
We are to bless him now in the day of grace. We are to confess
him now in the day of salvation. All must confess him in the end.
All must acknowledge him. But all to be those who were
brought to see that all our salvation is in this man in his person
and in his work well the Lord bless the word to us the lament
really the lament of our Lord Jesus Christ the reality of his
human nature oh what a man is this man this lovely man who
feels for sinners who weeps over sinners well the Lord Bless His
Word to us. Amen.