I want to ask you, if you will,
to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. I'll begin around verse 21. But this morning I want to tell
you again the greatest story that has ever been told. The greatest story that has ever
been told. A careful study of this chapter,
Luke 23, reveals that the Lord Jesus, having been betrayed with
a kiss, can you imagine? Betrayed with a kiss by one of
His own disciples named Judas, now comes face to face in Gethsemane's
garden with those that have come to take him by force. The Lord Jesus, the most peaceful
man that ever lived on earth, they came to him with swords
and stabs to take him by force. Matthew tells us in his gospel
account that it was then that all Christ's disciples, every
one of them, forsook him and fled. You've got 11 friends left, and every single
one of them leave you and forsake you. The Lord Jesus now stands
alone to tread the winepress of God's holy wrath in the place
of wretched sinners. Even his father in heaven hides
his face from him. The next morning at the break
of day, the Lord Jesus is brought before the chief priest and then
taken to Pilate and then to Herod and then back to Pilate again. And the scriptures tell us that
Pilate and Herod were two men that hated one another. They
despised one another, but they made friends on this day as they
taxied back and forth, God the Son. And having already been beaten
three times and weary from a long night and a morning of excruciating
pain, the Lord Jesus is rejected by his own nation. The Jews,
they found no value in him as the Messiah that the prophets
of old had pointed to. And though he's been beaten beyond
recognition and a crown of thorns placed upon his head and pushed
in to his brow, deep into his brow, his visage, his appearance
is marred more than any man before him or since. And my words are
not ample to describe this scene. Just not. No man's words are. His precious blood, the blood
of God, spills to the ground from His swollen, abused body
and brow, and the bloodthirsty crowd, who sought nothing less
than to be entertained by His sufferings, were not satisfied
with that alone. So instantly, with loud voices,
they cried aloud together in unison, verse 21, crucify Him, crucify Him. And all these things were done
quickly. The Scriptures reveal four to
six hours. Four to six hours, those who
hated the Lord Jesus Christ, the Scripture says, without a
cause, had resolved to lose no time at all in His demise. Their custom at the time of the
Passover feast was to release an incarcerated criminal as a
token of so-called mercy. But the Son of God in whom pallet
found no fault, found no mercy, and they desired that a guilty
criminal by the name of Barabbas be released instead of the innocent
Lamb of God. Truly, that gives us an illustration
of the innocent was condemned and the guilty was set free. There's no place in all the scripture
that the evil of man's free will is more exposed than right here
where the scriptures declare that Pilate delivered Jesus to
their will. You wanna see something about
your will? There you have it. Verse 25, their will was to crucify
and kill God, the Son of God, God the Son. What's the will of sinful and
fallen men? It's not to come, it's not to
bow, it's not to believe God, it's to kill Him. And as the Lord Jesus walked
the path to Golgotha's hill, carrying his own cross, that
instrument that would be used to kill him, the hardened Roman
soldiers called upon one named Simon, a Cyrenian, to bear his
cross for him, according to verse 26. And they didn't do this because
they felt sorry for him. They didn't do this because they
pitied him. They didn't do this to ease His
burden or lighten His load. They had this Simon to carry
His cross because they feared that He would die from all the
punishment that He'd already experienced before He reached
Golgotha's hill where they could inflict more pain and affliction
upon Him. There's much more that could
be said concerning the physical suffering of the only savior
for sinners, that being the Lord Jesus. We've only mentioned his
suffering of body and not his suffering of soul. So let's pick up this amazing
story, the greatest story that a sinner has ever heard or never
heard. But regardless of which it is,
it's the greatest story that's ever been told. Verse 27, and there followed
him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed
and lamented him. Now here we find no doubt some
true mourners, some who had possibly seen firsthand the Lord's works
and His miracles, His compassion and His deliverance and forgiveness. If there was ever a man who should
have been pitied, it's this man. If there was ever a man who was
totally and completely innocent of any and all charges, it was
this man, the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth. All the days of
his life, he was about his father's business, always doing only good
with a heart of compassion and kindness and mercy and grace. And upon hearing the cries of
these mourners, our Lord Jesus Christ then delivers and preaches
the gospel one last time. And what a message of mercy and
grace it is. And you might not think at first
that it's that, but it is. Verse 28, but Jesus turning unto
them said, daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and for your children. How could one on whom such injustice
falls say, weep not for me? but weep for yourselves and for
your children. It was because they should have
weeped for themselves. And upon to these weeping hearers,
the Lord Jesus one last time delivers and preaches a message of grace and mercy
to undeserving sinners. Weep not for me, he cries. He
rejects their pity. He rejects their mourning of
Him. Have you ever thought as to why? He tells them that their
tears are, for Him, useless and unprofitable. He's not just an
unfortunate man that's been caught in the crosshairs of circumstance. His suffering's on purpose. His
pain is voluntary. It's for the redemption of His
people, those that the Father gave Him before the foundation
of the world. He chose this course of suffering
so that He might die the just for the unjust, and that was
to bring them to God. And in a day where harling preachers
declare Christ to be willing but unable to save a sinner without
their consent or without their will and cooperation, the preachers
nor their hearers have any understanding of this greatest story that was
ever told. The sovereign Savior didn't simply
make salvation possible. I grow so tired of hearing such
nonsense. It's blasphemy is what it is.
He didn't make salvation possible by a decision that the sinner
must make. No, no, no. He made salvation
certain upon a decision that God made before the foundation
of the world, before the world was ever made. There's a decision
involved, but it's not ours. It's God Himself. Weep not for
me. Don't weep for me. And as profound
as those words are, none are more profound than the ones that
follow. He said, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Weep for yourselves for you are
the ones who are dead in trespasses and sin. Weep for your sins and
weep for the sins of your children. Oh, what unselfishness our Lord
portrayed, even in His darkest and dying hour. Don't weep for
me. Don't cry that I'm going to die,
for this is the will of God for the salvation of all that the
Father has given me. No, don't weep for me. Weep for
yourself. Weep for your children. Don't
cry for me, cry for yourself. Weep not over my condition, weep
over your condition. Oh, how I pray that the Lord
might cause us to weep and cry over the miseries that we have
brought upon ourselves. We have no one to blame for our
sin but ourselves. And if I not by the grace of
God, I would like Judas had betrayed him. And I would have liked Peter
denied him. And like all the apostles, I
would have fled in fear. My heart would have caused my
mouth to repeat every mocking word that was made that day against
him. Every blow that caused him harm,
every lie told to incriminate him, every strike that was laid
upon his back would have been nothing but manifestations of
my own corrupt heart. And along with every fallen,
wicked, unbelieving heart plagued with sin, I pronounce my own
judgment crying, His blood be on us and on our children. And it is. It is. But the loving Savior says, don't
weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your
children. That's to say, you just don't know what you do.
You don't know what you're doing. The shedding of Christ's blood
was caused by those who hated Him without a cause. There was
no reason to hate Him. And his blood is upon all who
called for his death. I've told you this, I knew a
man, knew him well. He's no longer alive. But on more than one occasion,
I heard him say, if I'd have been there the day that they
crucified the Lord, I would have done all I could to have stopped
it. I'd done everything I could to
have stopped it. Oh, arrogant pride. You speak
what is not so. You would have, with your own
wicked hands, have taken and crucified Him, nailing Him to
the tree, killed Him without a cause. But in the wisdom and
purpose of God, in His love for His people, is what put Him on
that tree. Behind it all is the first cause.
The Lord Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. What does this mean? It means
that the Lord Jesus Christ as God determined and purposed to
allow himself to be taken and crucified. That's the only way. The chosen
sinners could be justified and God remain just. No other way. God is bound by his holy justice
and can by no means clear the guilty. So the innocent one was
made guilty so that the guilty, you and I, might go free. And
that's the greatest story I've ever heard. It's called substitution. It's the only way that God could
be just and at the same time justify the ungodly. When the Lord's own apostles
sorrowed at the thought of leaving Him, He wiped away their tears
with this promise. He told them, and ye now therefore
have sorrow, but I'll see you again. And that promise is to every
child of God. I know your heart's breaking
over your sin, but you'll see me again. And however, I would
have you to notice once again that when the daughters of Jerusalem
lamented him only with worldly sorrow, he directed their tears
to something that they should truly be sorry over and cry over. And that's exactly what he did
for this wretched sinner. He gave me eyes to see myself as I truly am. James wrote, cleanse your hands,
ye sinners, and purify ye hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning
and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. When does He lift us
up? When our laughter is turned to
mourning and our joy to heaviness. When we see what we are and we
lament over our condition and our sin, we begin to weep for
ourselves and for our children. Oh, what words of mercy and grace
that God would give us eyes to truly see who and what we are,
that God would truly cause us to weep for ourselves. Have you
wept for yourself? Then in the next two verses,
we see the Lord Jesus, the only savior for sinners, in his office
as prophet. Look at verse 29. He said, for
behold, the days are coming in which they shall say, blessed
are the barren, and the wombs that have never bare, and the
paps which have never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say
to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. Now, it's true that the Lord
Jesus speaks here of the future destruction of Jerusalem, and
it's true that Jewish women among Jewish women, it was considered
a disgrace to be childless. How peculiar this must have sounded
in these women's ears. The thought of a time when it
would be a blessing to have no children, how could that be?
That was foreign to them as the daughters of Jerusalem. Yet history
reveals that within 50 to 70 years, according to Jewish historians,
that is, this prophecy by our Lord was literally fulfilled. The Roman army under the future
Emperor Titus brought destruction upon Israel with the most horrible
sufferings ever inflicted, even probably more so than the Holocaust.
Mankind is capable of doing horrific things if left to themselves.
People say, oh, I'm not perfect, but I'm not all that bad. You're
depraved. You're capable of doing the most
horrific acts if God leave you to yourself. God, please don't
leave me to myself. That's what Clayton prayed. Don't
leave us to ourselves. We're capable of doing the most
horrific things. And upon none more heavily were
these judgments sent than upon the mothers of these little children."
Old historians like Josephus report that for lack of food
during that siege, that parents actually sacrificed, and this
is graphic, and ate their own children for lack of food. None more heavily were these
judgments sent. But let it be understood that
this is also speaking of another judgment that's coming. Another judgment that the Lord
is also referring to here, and this is a judgment coming prepared
by God for the rebellious and the unbelieving. There's a wrath revealed in the
Word of God for those who harden themselves against the Lord Jesus
Christ. The same Lord, this one and only
Christ, who bids men and women who are laboring in their sin,
heavy laden because of it, He bids them to come to Him. And
He also declares that those who do not repent will forever perish. He said, come unto Me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you what? I'll
give you rest. Now that's what I want. I want rest. I want peace. I want comfort. This is a day that was and is
fast approaching where these women And women like them will
wish to be childless. In the days of our Lord, as I
said a moment ago, women that had no children were greatly ridiculed by those who
did. If you remember the story of
Hannah and Peninnah, she mocked Hannah because she was barren
and had no children. And she wanted a child more than
anything. That's what she prayed unto the
Lord. She said, give me a son and I'll give him right back
to you. And that's what she did. Verse 29, blessed are the barren
in the wombs that never bear and the paps which never gave
son. Oh, how the words of our Lord
should ring in our minds and in our hearts. Weep not for yourselves. Weep for yourselves, don't weep
for me, weep for yourselves and for your children. And when I
think about children, and I know some of you feel the same way,
when you think of your children, your grandchildren whom you love,
those who are yet without Christ, those who yet don't trust Him,
I weep for them, I really do. When I see this godless world
in which we live, the world in which these children are being
raised in today, well, I can't help but to not weep. Oh Lord, please have mercy. Save those who are yet without
Christ. And how cold and dead is a heart
that will not weep for the lost. Have we become so self-indulged,
so attached to this life and this world, this present evil
world, that we will not consider the wrath and judgment to come
upon those who don't know the Lord Jesus? Oh, may the Lord give us a great
awakening. Where's the weeping for sin?
Where's the weeping of our sin and the sin of others? Have we
become so engrossed with the things of the world that we've
forsaken our tears for those who are lost and those that will
die in their sin? Oh, Lord, forbid it to be so. I remember Brother Montgomery.
often talking about an old missionary in England who stood on the street
corner in London, I believe, and he just sat there and wept. And a man came up to him and
said, what are you weeping for? And he explained that he could
only hear the footsteps, the pitter patter of streets on the
brick streets there in London of those on their way to hell.
Oh, that God would give us that kind of hearing, and that kind
of compassion, and that kind of concern for the lost. Then in verse 30, the Lord said,
Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us,
and to the hills, cover us. And yes, dear friends, there's
a day coming, and it's vast approaching, when men and women will wish
to be buried alive than to face God. Face to face. I'm telling you it's so. The
Lord said it is. Not only to have their faces
covered, but to be completely covered and crushed to pieces
rather than to stand face to face with a thrice holy God. Those who will not flee to Christ
before that day, those who will not put themselves under the
shelter of His refuge, Those who refuse to get into that city
of refuge, to get into that ark, to get in Rahab's house and stay
there, oh my. But it'll be too late. There'll
be no escape and there'll be no mercy. While there's still
breath, while there's still a heartbeat, a pulse, while there's still
life, weep, beg, call, and cry for God's mercy and grace. The
Lord has yet to shut the door on the ark. The door is still
unlocked to the harlot's house, in whose window hangs the scarlet
cord. The gate of the city of refuge
is still opened and unlocked, and the manslayer can still find
protection from the avenger of blood there. Won't you flee to
Christ? He is our refuge. He is our shelter. In Psalm 130, the psalmist cried
out of the depths, the depths of sin and depravity unto the
Lord, and he said, oh God, hear my voice. If you cry, and if
that's what you really desire in your heart, you'll receive
that mercy. He never turned one down yet,
never, that truly wanted it. If God should mark our iniquities,
who shall stand? None, nobody. Yet the gospel
clearly declares, but, but there's forgiveness within. Is this nothing to you, all of
you that pass by? Will you cry out the depths of
your sin and sorrow and beg God to hear your voice? There's still
mercy and forgiveness reserved for those who desire it. Depth
of mercy, can there be mercy still reserved for me? Yes, there's
plenteous mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. For thou, Lord, are good
and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call
upon thee. Psalm 86, 5, but thou, O Lord,
are a God full of compassion and gracious and long-suffering
and plenteous in mercy and truth. Plenteous, Tom. The Lord is mercy and gracious,
slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. Over and over again in
the Psalms. Plenteous, plenteous in mercy.
Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy,
and with Him is plenteous redemption. Look at verse 31. For if they
do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
Now, what does that mean? I read that for years, never
really knew what it meant. What's the Lord saying there?
Well, first He's saying, if I, who am not a rebel against Caesar
suffered this way. I'm being perfectly innocent.
I haven't offended Roman law. How much will those who are truly
guilty before God suffer? If I, who am perfectly innocent
of Roman law, be put to death this way, what will become of
those who are truly guilty of God's law? When a fire rages
in the forest and the green trees, which are full of sap and still
full of life and moisture as they burn and crackle like stubble
in the fire, how much more will those old dry trees that are
rotten to the core be burned up? That's what he's saying. Are they not prepared as fuel
for the furnace? If the perfect Christ suffers,
one who has no sin, one who knew no sin, full of the sack of holiness,
how much more will those suffer who have long been dead in trespasses
and sin? Many sinners truly see what sin
is when they see the sinless Christ suffer for. Those are
the ones that God has revealed such things to. But the sin that
He suffers with is the sin of His people, not His own. Because
He didn't know any sin. He knew no sin. He did no sin.
He knew no sin. And isn't this not the greatest
story you ever heard? If the green tree burned as it
did on Calvary's cross in misery and in anguish, what will be
done to the dry? How shall any escape the everlasting
wrath and everlasting burning of the dead and the dry branches
that have been cut off from the vine? How shall we escape? The writer of Hebrews said, if
we neglect so great salvation, we must not neglect it. Not this
great salvation. So today, Today's the day of
salvation. Come to Christ. He commands you
to come. Come unto me, he said. Not to
the law. No. Not to the preacher. Not
to the front of the church. Come to me. All you that labor and heavy
laden, over what? What are you heavy laden and
what are you laboring over? Your sin! If you labor heavy
laden and labor over your sin, He said, I'll give you rest if
you come to Me. But you've got to come to Him. And there's just no ifs, ands,
and buts about it. If you come heavy laden over
your sin, He will give you rest. And isn't that the greatest story
you've ever heard? Verse 34, then said Jesus, Father
forgive them for they know not what they do. I don't know who all he prayed
that for, but I guarantee you everyone he prayed it for, God
forgave them. And they parted his raiment and
cast lots, and the people stood beholding, and the rulers also
with them derided him, saying, He saved others, let him save
himself. If he be Christ, the chosen of
God. And the soldiers also mocked
him, coming to him, offering him vinegar and saying, If thou
be the king of the Jews, save yourself. For as he couldn't
save himself, not because He couldn't, but because he wouldn't,
and he couldn't because he's gonna save his people from their
sin. He couldn't save himself and still save us. Somebody's
gotta pay the wages of sin. Somebody's got to satisfy the
justice, the holy justice of God. Only one who can, this man. And he said, weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children. It was soon after that he said,
it's finished. You know, I think those three
words become more precious to me every single day. I think that by God's grace,
I see just a little clearer every day what that means. That means
that my salvation is accomplished. That means that God has accepted
his finished work. It was then that the Lord Jesus
said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said this, he gave
up the ghost. He gave it up. No man took his
life from him. He laid it down. He gave it up. He gave up the ghost so that
sinners like you and I might live. Isn't that a wonderful
story? Well, that's the greatest one
I ever heard. And to every lost sinner, I say to you this morning,
weep not for Christ, but weep for yourselves, and weep for
your children, and come to Christ, because He's never turned away
one who did. So may God be pleased to make
it so for His glory, and our good, and for Christ's sake.