All right, if you'd open your
Bibles to Luke chapter 23. Yesterday, as Bonnie and I were
driving back the final leg of our vacation trip, we'd stayed
overnight in Columbia, Missouri, which is about the halfway point
between here and our daughter's house. And as we drove back,
we played quite a bit of music. Sometimes I like silence, but
a lot of times I enjoy listening to music as I'm driving down
the road. Almost always hymns. I enjoy thinking on them. If they're good hymns, they inspire
with the truth. If they're bad hymns, they sharpen
our minds to say, okay, that's wrong. Because the scriptures
say such and such. But we listened to some music
that was recorded by Ed Hale. And I know that none of you have
ever met him. We have sung some of his hymns
in the past. That hymn How merciful thou wast
to me. We used to sing that quite often. And that was one that he wrote. He wrote another one, I Got a
Pardon in My Pocket. I remember Herman Alberta used
to sing that song a lot. And as I was listening, he sang
a song called Weep Not for Me. And it reminded me of the scriptures
and the events from which he drew that for his sermon and
the events and we'll begin reading in verse 26. Luke 23 verse 26, And they led
him, that is the Lord Jesus, led him away, away from Pilate's
judgment seat. Our Lord had been arrested out
of envy and jealousy and hatred. The religious leaders of the
day absolutely despised him. The conservatives of the day
absolutely despised him. They were the Pharisees. The
liberals of the day despised him. That was the Sadducees.
And the ones that liked to mix their politics and religion,
the Herodians, they didn't like him either. And they all banded together
and They suborned false witnesses
to charge him with things he'd never done, brought him before
Pilate, because they didn't just want to get him in trouble, they
wanted him put to death, and the Jews were not allowed to
pass the death penalty. Only Rome could do that. And
so they brought him to Rome's representative there. And that's
why the Lord stands before Pilate. And Pilate did all he could to get the people to quit calling
for his death. And they preferred to have a
murderer let go and run out among them again. They would prefer
to have a murderer living among them. Lord Jesus. They let a murderer go free and
murdered the Lord Jesus. Barabbas, there's another beautiful
picture of the Gospel there. The name Barabbas means son of
the Father. That's us. John said, Beloved
now are we the children of God. We're sons of the Father. And
thee son of God. was given that we sons of the
Father might be set free. But they let Barabbas free, and
so they led Christ away from the place of judgment to the
place of crucifixion. They seized Simon from Cyrene,
who was on his way in from the country. They put the cross on
him and made him carry it behind Jesus. Now just as an aside,
if you watch any Bible movies involving the crucifixion, they'll
generally show you Christ with this lowercase T shaped cross
and he's got the upright beam on his shoulder and he's holding
on to the cross beam trying to drag that thing along. That's
not what they did. crucifixions were carried out
on a cross that looked more like a capital T rather than a lowercase
T, the cross bar was at the top. And all that the condemned carried
out to the place of crucifixion was the cross beam. They wouldn't
have been able to carry that big upright end of the cross
beam, both. Our Lord was at this point having
been beaten as He was and so abused wasn't even able to carry
the crossbeam. That's why Simon of Cyrene was
ordered to carry it. So they would be carrying that
thing across their shoulders out to the place of crucifixion.
Now it says, a large number of people followed Him including
women who mourned and wailed for Him. Jesus turned and said
to them, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your
children. For the time will come when you
will say, blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore
and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will say to the mountains,
fall on us. and to the hills cover us. For if men do these things when
the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" Now this day is probably the most notable
day in all of history. I realize that When these events
were going on, there were just a handful of people, just those
in Jerusalem that knew that they were happening. And nobody knew what these events
meant. No one understood that what happened
on this day is the most important thing that has ever happened. This day answered Adam's sin. This day answered God's judgment
on sin. This day drew a line between
the living and the dead. This day secured the salvation of every one of
God's elect, beginning at least as far back as Abel and all the
way to the last of God's sheep who shall hear the gospel and
believe to the saving of their souls. These events outwardly were carried
on, were carried out, in the form of a crucifixion, one of
the most agonizing forms of death ever devised by hateful, wicked
men. It was designed not only to put
someone to death, but to put them in such a state of pain
that is unimaginable, and to expose them to open shame. They crucified them naked. They
did everything they could to heap their contempt upon the
one who is crucified. Crucifixion was considered such
a brutal and gruesome method of execution, you are not allowed
to practice it on a Roman citizen. They were exempt. Our Lord was not a Roman citizen.
He was liable to crucifixion. And those who hated Him, hated
Him with such a passion would not have been content with a
stoning or a beheading or anything that might have been quick and
merciful to put an end to his life simply to get him out of
the way. So full of hatred were they for him, they wanted him
to suffer. The suffering of the cross is
so great that they invented a word to describe it, excruciating. The C-R-U-C-I in the middle,
crucify, excruciating. It actually means pain out of
the cross. That's what the word means. And this is carried out within
the sight of men. And there were those there who
could have given you an account of these events that happened,
the trial, the beating. walk to Golgotha, hammering the
nails in his wrists and his feet. They could have told you about
the things that he said, but apart from a work of God's
grace, nobody understands what these events mean. What goes
on on this day is the most powerful thing that ever happened. When
God said, as it is written, he spoke and it was, he commanded
and it stood forth. That's talking about his word
of creation. When he said, let there be light,
it was not so much an operation of power as what events happened
on this day. For that original world brought
forth a creation, the old creation, bought forth this creation, a
creation that could be broken. Those original words of God brought
this creation into being, though it was all very good when God
was done with it, it did have the possibility within it that
it be destroyed. And that's exactly what happened.
He created a man and man fell, man sinned. And when he sinned,
he not only destroyed himself, he destroyed the whole creation,
put it on a path of destruction. God spoke and it was, he commanded
it to stood forth, but later on it broke. And someday what
came to be shall cease to be. But on this day, He who not only
speaks the Word of God, but who is the Word of God, by his own
work as the Word, performing the will of God, brought into
existence a new creation. A creation that can only be seen
by faith. We look around, what do we see?
We see a broken creation, don't we? I talked about the illnesses
within our congregation, a little group like us and that many people,
sick like that. Why? We're broken. The machinery
of the universe doesn't work and we're part of that universe,
so our machinery doesn't work. It falls apart. Sometimes it
gets some better and we go a little longer, but eventually the time
comes when we break down so bad, there's no coming back. But on this day, on this day,
Christ spoke, and it was, and it shall ever be. He commanded,
and it stood firm, and it's still standing, and it ever shall be. He said, let there be light,
and there was light, and it still shines, and the darkness cannot
overcome it, The most powerful thing that
ever happened, or will ever happen, happened on this day in a politically insignificant
country. You know, the only reason that
Israel, the land of Israel, is so significant in history is
that if you want to get from the continent of Africa to the
continent of Europe, you pretty much got to go through there.
It's on the Mediterranean and that's the path. Otherwise, nobody
would have cared to live there. But here is where God chose to
do the most glorious work he ever did or shall do. Tremendous,
powerful events happened this day. one but our Lord and a little
later on one of the thieves crucified with Him had a clue of what was
really going on. And as He's walking out there
to the cross there were some women from Jerusalem who followed
Him. Now I'm not talking about women
who were disciples they were just literally following Him
as He walked out to Golgotha. mourned and wailed for Him. You've seen how some of those
Mid-Eastern societies when they are stricken with grief they
have these wails, some call them ululations or ululations, but
they raise their voice high and it kind of trills and that's
the way they are pouring out their grief and these women were
following Him. They were truly disturbed by
what they saw, but this was the official way to tell out your
grief and your sorrow and your shock and horror about what's
going on. They followed him and they mourned and they wailed
for him. It is written in the prophet
Zechariah, that they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son. He who came as the promised Messiah
has been outright rejected. The best reaction to Jesus Christ until the thief on the cross
trusted him, the best reaction toward our Lord on that day, all his disciples forsook him
and fled. That was the best. There was
betrayers, haters, murderers, rejecters, usurpers, none to help. They followed him, these women
did, and wailed and mourned for him. Why do you think they did that?
Well, first of all, as I said, the shock and horror of what's
going on. Now, you and I have never witnessed a crucifixion.
We've probably never witnessed any kind of execution at all.
But the civilization of which you and I are a part thinks if
somebody has done a crime worthy of death, It ought to be as quick
and painless a death as possible. This was exactly the opposite. This was designed, as I said,
to prolong it, designed to increase the pain and the shame. And so
they were shocked and horrified at what's unfolding before them.
Not only this, they didn't walk behind the two thieves who were
going to be crucified with them. They weren't mourning and wailing
about them. These women, even though they
were not among those who were, shall we call them, the close
disciples of the Lord, they knew about him. He'd been in town
for a whole week, and he'd, of course, been to Jerusalem several
times in the past. They knew who he was. They knew
what he had done. They knew that he was a good
man. Some had thought that, indeed, he was the Messiah. He was the
Christ. There were some among them maybe
who had been among those that had been healed by him or fed
by him. And now they see this one to
whom their hearts have become attached because of his goodness
toward them. And there he's being led out
to be slaughtered and they're powerless to do anything about
it. And they probably mourned and
wailed for him because they also realized that the only reason
this could happen is because their own nation was under the
domination of another nation. Jews never would have crucified
anybody. The law wouldn't have allowed it. They would stone
people or they would them through with a spear, something like
that. And then maybe hang the body up afterwards as a display
of God's rejection and curse. But they didn't crucify people.
The fact that our Lord Jesus Christ was being crucified this
day was a testimony that despite what the Jews said, remember
they said we've never been in bondage to anybody? And yet at that very
time they were in bondage to Rome. And that probably was some of the reason that these
women were weeping. They were weeping for him because
his grief was greater than the grief of anyone who'd ever lived. The song we sang to open our
service was based on the scriptures from Lamentations 1 and then
Lamentations 3. in which through the mouth of
the prophet Jeremiah, our Lord says, you that pass by, is it
nothing to you? Look upon me and see if there
be any suffering like the suffering that the Lord has visited upon
me. He has sent his fire into my bones. He has wrapped my sins
around my neck like a net. And maybe they caught a little
sense of that. Yet our Lord, in the midst of
this, he hears these women weeping, the only sound of sympathy in
that whole cacophony of crucify him and mocking and all that.
And all of that, he turned around and said, don't weep for me.
Don't weep for you. No, don't weep for me. Weep for
yourselves. Now of all the people who ever
lived, our Lord Jesus was suffering in such a way it
was perfectly legitimate that others weep in his behalf. And
yet he said, don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves. Why would
he say a thing like that? Well, first of all, he would
say a thing like that because being the Savior he is. His concern was always for others. The pain that he bore, the suffering
he experienced, was something he willingly, even gladly, entered
into for the sake of his people. This is an amazing thing to think
of, that on this day, as our Lord is being led out to be nailed
to a tree, And to have the wrath of Almighty God poured out upon
him, he's more concerned with the sorrow of those women who
mourn for him than for his own sorrows. Have you a sorrow? Is there a burden upon your heart? Do circumstances weigh you down
and you don't Know how you're going to work your way out of
whatever you're in? Are you sick? Is age creeping up on you? Your sins. Of all the things that weigh
heavy on the soul of a believer, nothing can come close to his
sin. Paul, because of the continuing
sin in him, cried out in written words, O wretched man that I
am. He didn't consider himself a
wretched man because he suffered at the hands of men. He didn't
consider himself a wretched man because Though at one time he
had been highly esteemed, he was now held in contempt, he
considered himself a wretched man because God had created within
him a heart that truly desired to do what was right, but he
said, when I would do good, evil's present with me. And the good
that I want to do, I cannot do. And the evil that I want to avoid,
I fall into it headlong. Does that burden your heart? It burdens the Lord more. He is more concerned about your
sorrow over your troubles than he was concerned about his troubles
in the day that he took up your sorrows. carried our sorrows, bore our
grief. Sometimes we get such hard and
cold pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. We try to magnify him
as king, and well, we should. Because that's what he is, isn't
it? He's the Lord. He's the king. King of kings,
Lord of lords. But let us not forget that while
he's king of kings and lords of lords, he's not a king and
lord like men are. Kings and lords do get cold,
don't they? Most of them. Most men, the higher they get,
the less they're concerned about the people beneath them. Our
Lord was exalted to the right hand of God specifically for
this purpose, to take care of those beneath him. It is written, let us come boldly
to the throne of grace. that we may find mercy to help
us in time of need, for we do not have a high priest who is
untouched by the feelings of our infirmities, but was tried
in every point, just like we are, yet without sin." What's
the writer of Hebrews saying there? We have a Savior who cares. We have a Savior who's been everywhere
we've ever been. We have a Savior who's been burdened
with everything we were ever burdened with. He said, well,
He's never burdened with sin. What do you think's going on
this day? Wasn't His sin, but He's being burdened with it.
He knows what it is, and He cares. Don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves. He also said to them, don't weep
for me, weep for yourselves, because he knew what was coming
for Jerusalem. Our Lord, as a man, like us, if I can use this word,
had conflicts in his thinking. That is, it seems as though he
had to hold two thoughts in his mind which were mutually exclusive. And one example of this is as
he approached Jerusalem, I believe it was when he approached Jerusalem
on the week preceding crucifixion. But as he drew near to that city,
he said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you
as a hen doth gather her chicks. But you would not. You would
not. Such love. Such compassion. He was heading Jerusalem knowing
they were going to crucify him. He told his disciples that. He
knew what was going to happen when he got there. And yet his
heart was broken for that city. Those rebels weighed heavy on
his heart. But he said this, he said, I
would have, how I would have gathered you as a hen does gather
her chicks, but you would not. Therefore your house is left
to you. Desolate, desolate. It's considered an unfortunate
turn of events when a couple is unable to have children.
In our day, you know, we understand the biology behind it, but back
in these days, it was always blamed on the woman. It said
woman was barren. And therefore, when a child or
a woman was childless, she was considered cursed of God. So
she not only had to bear up with the sorrow simply of not having
a way to express her motherly affections, She had to bear the
scorn of others. And such a woman was called desolate. And that's what our Lord said
about Jerusalem, your house is left to you desolate. And here he's speaking to mothers,
isn't he? These women had fallen, they were mothers. And he says
of them, For the time will come, verse 29, when you will say,
blessed are the barren women. Imagine that. Imagine living
in this day where barren women were considered to be desolate,
cast off by God. People would think, well, he
must have done something wrong that you can't have children. And
he said, they'll look at those people and they'll say, they're
the blessed ones. the wombs that never bore and
the breasts that never nourished. They're the blessed ones. The
Lord says there's coming a day when people will say that. Verse 30, then they will say
to the mountains, fall on us into the hills, cover us. Our Lord he would have gathered
those people to himself as a hen doth gather her chicks. He knew
because of the rebellion God would utterly destroy them. And speaking in a very human
way he says to these women, weep for yourselves and for your children.
Because here's what's going to, he didn't say this in detail
but this is what, this is how it played out. This is what our
Lord was seeing and knew was coming. That the Roman army would
come in. tear down the walls, kill everybody,
slaughter the children. There's one kind of woman who is in a worse position, so
far as pain, a worse position than a woman with no children.
And that's a woman who's had her children taken from her.
That's going to happen. Because of their rejection, oh, how patient God had been
with that people throughout the Old Testament ages. They were
stubborn rebels. Stiff-necked, says the scriptures. Everything God told him to do
they wouldn't do and everything he told him not to do they ran
headlong to do it He said of them you invent ways of doing
evil. You do it with both hands mightily
and Here they now they did he treat all the prophets Like that,
but now God has sent his son sent the one Whom they had been
promised and what did they do? They turned him out will not have this man to rule
over us." They had broken God's law and
come under its curse. But here's the curse bearer for what they do with him. They
rejected him. So not only did they earn themselves
a curse under the law, they cast out the one. could bear their
curse for them. Brother Spurgeon says, transgression
of the Gospel, which that's what this was, rejection of Christ. Transgression of the Gospel is
worse than transgression in the Law. For transgression of the
Law there is a remedy in the Gospel, but there is no remedy
for transgression of the Gospel. And so he says, Weep for yourselves. Right now, you are witnessing
the event that will destroy your nation and will make your children a
prey. As God brought wrath upon that
city and that nation. Now, if you look over here in
verse 34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them. They do not know
what they are doing. Our Lord, hanging on that cross, looked
at those down there surrounding him, breathing out hatred. He said, Father, forgive them.
They don't understand what they're doing. And God did. He forgave that
generation. But when that generation came
to an end, there were only a few of them left. 70 AD. whole new bunch of people rejecting
Christ by rejecting the apostle's message. And God brought the
Roman army in and there was hardly one stone left standing upon
another. And they slaughtered and they butchered. And so came
to pass the saying, blessed are the barren women, the wombs that
never bore and the breasts never nursed. Then men said to the
mountains, follow us. Better to be crushed under a
mountain than to die at the hands of these ruthless Romans. Cover
us. John picked up that theme in
the book of Revelation where they cried out to the rocks
and the mountains, follow us and hide us. the face of the
Lamb. And while our Lord did not come
visibly in 70 AD, He came. He came using His agents, the
Roman army. Came full of the wrath of God
against those that rejected Him. And so He says to these women,
don't weep for me, weep for yourselves. because there was going to come
a destruction on them for which there would never be a recovery. Our Lord was going to a worse
destruction than they would experience. For after all, the destruction
of Jerusalem and the slaughter of all those people only had
to do with this life. Our Lord was about to die the death of
the wicked. He was about to die and, as it
were, face God to judge, bearing the sins of many, and therefore
bearing within himself all the punishment that a holy God can
do to sinners. But here's the thing. Our Lord knew that wasn't the
end. That though he would suffer more
than they would, his suffering would come to an end. He suffered
and he suffered and they're hanging on that cross. And then, you
know, the Lord kind of turned out the lights for three hours.
And many people believe it was during those three hours. that
God, the judge of all, descended upon Calvary, and in versions
of suffering you and I don't know anything about, and we never
will because of grace. Our Lord bore our sins in His
body on the tree, which means He bore the wrath of God for
those sins. But just before His body died, He said, it is
finished. the suffering was greater, but
it came to an end. And it came to an end because
He actually accomplished all that was required in payment
for sin. Imagine that. The Scriptures present Heaven
as an eternal thing. It seems to me they also present
Hell as an eternal thing. Why would Hell be eternal? Does
God Enjoy punishing people like that? Hell is eternal because
people like you and me, we can never suffer enough to put away
sin. We'll suffer for a million, you
know, those that suffer God's wrath, they'll suffer for a million
years, but their sins still aren't paid for. It's never enough. They're never finished. Jesus
Christ finished. He's the only one that ever finished
dying. Everybody else is eternally dying. Christ died. It is finished. It's over. While he's hanging on the cross
and that thief to his right was given grace to see who Christ
is and what he was doing, he said, Lord, remember me when
you come into your kingdom. And our Lord said to him, today,
you'll be with me in paradise. Our Lord knew his suffering,
great as it would be, would be over by the end of the day. He
was going to get the job done, and he would once again be Jesus
Christ, the righteous, accepted by the Father, blessed by the
Father, and in the Father's presence with everlasting joy. He goes on in verse 31, says,
for if men do these things when the tree is green, what will
happen when it's dry? This can be applied in a few
ways. If these Romans are willing to
capitulate to the Jews and their demands for Christ's death, while the tree, that is Israel,
is green, while there's still some life in it, what will they
do? when it's dry. Rome already didn't like Israel. They were an aggravating bunch
of people. Really, they even said it. Some speculate that
Pilate must have got on the wrong side of Caesar to be sent down
there to take care, to rule over the Jews. But I like to take it this way. Israel was green then, why? Well
green represents life, doesn't it, in a tree. He who is the
life was there among them. It says that people will do this
when there's life among them. What will they do? When there
is no life, when there is no Christ, when there is no Savior,
what will they do? Now, let me apply this to you
and me. We see, we think about our Lord's
crucifixion and we are rightly moved. We are rightly grieved,
especially when we think that it's our sins that caused all
that. But us being sympathetic toward
Christ because of his suffering is not what gains salvation for
us. All those women, they sympathize
with him. And if they lived long enough
to get to 70 AD, they all perished. They and their children. There are a lot of people that
get emotional about the crucifixion of Christ, the suffering of Christ,
and they think their emotion is somehow indicative that they
are among the saved. They were emotional, horrible
thing. You can be moved by thoughts of the crucifixion. Your heart
can be stirred by the principles of the gospel and yet you yourself
not be a beneficiary of it. Weep for yourselves. Do you understand
what awaits you? Do you have any idea what it
would be like to leave this world without Christ? Christianity is so flippant these
days. I guess there's always been an
element of that, but they don't realize the seriousness of the matters dealt with in
Scripture. We're talking about eternity. We're talking about
the wrath of a holy God. Feeling sorry for Jesus isn't
going to do it. He's not in trouble. You are. Weep for yourselves. Think seriously about what lies
ahead. Because as Paul said, God has
appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that one whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus Christ. Our Lord suffered, but his suffering's
over. And if you are in Christ, your
suffering's over. Oh, there's troubles in life,
but nothing compared to the suffering of the damned. And Paul said
our suffering in this life is not even worthy to be compared
with the glory that'll be revealed in us if we're in Christ. But
if you leave this world without Christ, oh my, there is no hope. How did Paul describe the Gentiles?
without Christ, without God, without hope. So when you think upon our Lord's
crucifixion, there's nothing wrong with shedding a tear. It breaks my heart when I think
of my sin. It's what caused that. It breaks
my heart that I keep on sinning. knowing my sin caused that. It
breaks my heart that I love my sin as much as I do, even though
I know what it did to the Savior. It's the conflict within us. My friend, those can be crocodile
tears. It's not sympathy for him that's
needed. It's God's sympathy towards us for Christ's sake. That's
where our salvation comes from. And our Lord says to each of
us, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves. You're in trouble. And apart from me, you'll stay
that way forever. But he rose from the dead, and in his resurrection, He fulfills
the words he said to Lazarus' sister. He that believes in me
will never die. And he that lives and believes
in me, he'll live even though he dies. So that doesn't make any sense.
It does if you understand the gospel. Because the life that
our Lord gained by the cross is not just an extension of this
life. This life will come to an end,
and that's good. He said, I've come that they
might have life. So evidently he figured they
didn't have life. Come they might have life, and they might have
it to the full. So when you see the Savior, in
your heart and mind see him suffering for sin, Don't think, poor Jesus. Say, oh, poor me if I don't have
him. And trust him with all your heart.