Holy, holy, holy, thrice holy
God. Holy, holy, holy, holy Father,
holy Son, holy Ghost. That's Seraphim Isaiah 6, cried
holy, holy, holy. David said in Psalm 99, his name
is holy, his footstool is holy, his hill is holy. The Lord our
God is holy, holy, holy, holy. We're going to see something
of that tonight in this passage. Luke 19. The title and the subject
tonight is the sorrow and the anger of our Lord, or the mercy
and the wrath of our Lord. We're going to see both here
tonight. I'm very aware of this being a Wednesday night, and
people that come mostly on a Wednesday night are God's people, believers,
and I'm always wanting to bring something very comforting. If you'll notice, the radio messages,
all the radio messages are geared toward people that are lost.
I'll make a point. to preach to those over the radio
as if they'd never heard the truth before. Very, very plain.
And there's some lost in here. But anyway, I thought about how
can I comfort you with these words? Well, I can't, but the
Spirit of God can. can and does. Why do we deal
with this on Wednesday night? Because it's in context, it's
come up, hasn't it, in God's sovereign providence. It's come
up right now. And it has a purpose. It will profit us. All Scriptures
are profitable, okay? And I think this too, that As we see this day approaching
of our Lord coming, these things are about to be fulfilled. I'm
convinced more than ever that we're in the very last of the
last day. And that should make us so very thankful. Paul wrote in Romans 11, Behold
the goodness and the severity of our God. Behold the goodness
and the severity, goodness to his people, severity on those
who don't believe. And all of God's people, God's
children are taught of God. And even those, even our young
people are taught from an early age to know something of the
true God, something of his true character. Someone tell me what
his chief attribute is. Anybody. Did you hear all those
answers? If you would ask the average
person out in the world, religion, 100 out of 100 would say love. There's so many things you cannot
explain by love. You can't explain death. my love. He can't explain hell, my love, and wrath, and
so forth. But holiness, He can. God's love
is holy. Everything about God is holy.
And all of God's people know that. He's holy, holy, holy.
He's just. He's righteous in all His way.
He said, first thing He said, look unto me and be, you say,
I'm a what? Just God. And, I say, all of
God's people know that first, that He's holy, He's just, He's
righteous in all His way. Right? What does that create? Fear. Fear the Lord. Okay? Psalm 2. Turn over there real quickly
before we look at this, at our text. Psalm 2. You know this
thing, but you need to know where they are, okay, so that you can
relate them to somebody else, witness these things. Psalm 2,
we're going to look at several scriptures that we quote all
the time, but Psalm 2, you see, our God is love, and yet he hates
Right? Throughout the scriptures, several
places, it speaks of God's hatred. And people say, well, God hates
sin and He loves the sinner. No, no, no, no. Hang on. There's
some people He hates. In Proverbs 6, it talks about
all those things. It's talking about people. And
He said that about Esau. Now, God doesn't hate even innocent
people. Those that hate Him, okay? They hate Him. We're going to read that in Romans
3 in a minute. But look at this. Our Lord is
merciful, but He's wrathful. Our Lord is pitiful, yet our
Lord will pour out His anger. Our Lord is gracious, but He's
just. Our Lord will pardon, but He's
going to punish. He will by no means clear the
guilty. This is the true God. The true
Christ. Psalm 2 says in verse 11, and
only God's people know this, serve the Lord with fear and
rejoice with trembling. Can you both rejoice and tremble?
We were talking the other night, some of us on the back porch,
and I said, and I still say it, that the fear of the Lord is
not really something you can explain. Right? I've never, right, I've never
really heard a man explain it fully, because it's a paradox.
It's a paradox. You trust him, yet you fear him. Serve the Lord with fear, rejoice
with tremor, kiss the Son, lest he be what? Now this, what signs is he talking
about? Jesus Christ. Now, you will not hear modern
man say things like that. You won't hear them read that.
If they do, they'll say, that's the Old Testament. God's changed.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, day, and forever. Our God doesn't
change. He said, I'm the Lord, I change.
Therefore, you sons of Jacob, rotten, sinful, are not consigned. Why? Covenant. Don't you love covenant? Kiss
the son lest he be angry, and he perish from the way when his
what? Wrath is kindled, but a little. Then it ends with, blessed are
all they that put their trust in him. It's just not something
you can explain, is it? It's given to you. It's instilled
in you. It's put in you. You just have
it. I loved my father. I knew he loved me. I trusted
him fully. I had full confidence he's not
going to do me wrong. He's not going to hurt me. But
I feared him. I feared him. I did when I was
a teenager. I wish I had. I think you understand what I'm
saying. Now go back to our text. In our text, we see both the
compassion of our Lord and His anger and His wrath and His judgment.
Goodness and severity, that's what we see here. In our text,
verse 41, He came near Jerusalem. He was on the Mount of Olives.
He beheld the city. He's looking over the city. And
the Mount of Olives has a wonderful view of Jerusalem. And our Lord
went there often, didn't He? And He beheld the city. He looked out over the city. And He wept. That's amazing. That's amazing. In a little while,
he's going to go into that city, and the whole city is going to
cry out for his blood to kill him. He wept over it. That's amazing. You know, you
remember back in what chapter was it? Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered
you as a mother hen to gather her brood? And you would not
remember that? Back in chapter 13. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
Killed the prophets. Our Lord wept over that city.
Jerusalem. Jerusalem had a fond place in
the hearts of God's people like David. Jerusalem. The name means City of Peace.
Jerusalem. Salem. City of Peace. David loved
Jerusalem. God chose Jerusalem. Listen to
Psalm 122. He said, Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love
thee. Peace be within thy walls. Prosperity within thy palace.
And it was, as long as they worshipped God. As long as there were men
like David reigning and ruling, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah. There were some good men. Some
godly men. Some true kings that worshipped
the true and living God. And he said, For my brethren,
my companions' sake, I will now say of Jerusalem, Peace be within
thee. Because of the house, that's
where the temple was. He said, I will seek thy good. But no more. And the Lord had
two temples torn down, two of them. And at this time, when
our Lord came, the temple was still there, the second temple. But it's soon to be torn down,
and he's going to tell about it. Why? Why? Because they rejected God
because of their sin. You read that, you chose well,
Brother Kelly, Ezekiel 39. It talked about the Lord dealing
with the land because of their sin, because of their idolatry.
And that's why. And now, you know, Jerusalem,
There's never going to be, and I've had people take issue with
me over this, and I don't care. There's not going to be another
temple built. There is a temple, but it's people of God. And the
Jerusalem now that we pray for is not, now mind you, we do pray
for the Jew, we ought to pray for the Jew, but he's not a Jew,
which is one outwardly, but inwardly. And Jerusalem, The city we're
going to see come down from heaven out of God, that's the church.
And you're it. We're in it. We're in Jerusalem
right now. We're in Zion. We're on Mount
Zion right now. We're a little bit down over the hill in a little
hole here, but really on Mount Zion. Yes, we are. The Lord has exalted us. We're
on Mount Zion. We're Jews. We're in Jerusalem. We have a city of peace. This
is where God dwells. It's his favorite habitation.
Now, let no one mistake our Lord's sorrow here for despair, or helplessness,
or, you know, being distraught, saying, oh, I wish there was
something I could do, but I can't. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. We sing, there's a hymn in our
book, Depth of Mercy, and there's one line I just don't like. And
you know what it is, don't you? It says, Jesus weeps and loves
a stiff. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. He's not weeping. He's in heaven. There are no
tears in heaven. He's not weeping. Now, nobody in heaven is weeping.
How do you explain grieving the Holy Spirit when I'm not going
to do that later, okay? But right here, our Lord came
down to this earth. And this sadness he has here,
this sorrow, is having a full understanding and sense of man's
utter willful ignorance and depravity and sinfulness and rebellion
against God that man is destroying himself. And he's looking at him like,
Look what you've done to yourself. That's why he wept when he came
to Lazarus' tomb. Remember? When he came to Lazarus'
tomb, he wept. And they said, Behold, how he
loved him. Yes, he loved him. He loved him. Yes, he did. But
he wasn't weeping over Lazarus' death. Okay? He may have been weeping. There
are many things we can think about. But he may have been weeping
because you had to bring him back. But I'm certain he was
weeping over what sin had wrought in this earth. Death! Death is
sad! He wept for Mary and Martha,
because they were distraught. They were in distress. They were
greatly troubled. And all that knew Lazarus was
greatly troubled. And he wept over their sorrow.
See, He bore our sorrows. This sadness and sorrow wasn't
despair at all. The Lord can save anyone He pleases. Whoever He wills to save, He
will save. He does save. He's able to save
to the uttermost. He is merciful on whom He will. He is gracious on whom He will.
No despair. There's no despair here, but
sorrow. And sorrow over what man has done to himself, and
sorrow over what he must do to man. You know, the Lord takes
no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Be like a wild dog. You know,
I love dogs. But some of them ain't fit to live. Right? I've shot some animals. We had
foxes. We had hens. We loved our hens.
We loved our eggs. I was eating about half a dozen
a day. But foxes, we had trouble with
foxes. They're sly. And they just wiped them out. So I trapped one of them. call
him a lot. Would I do? I'd kill him. Through the hammer of the chickens,
right? I didn't take pleasure in that. It had to be done. Our
Lord is weeping for that reason. Oh, I've got to do this. I love the Lord. He looked over that city with
sadness at what man is and what man does and what he must do. And he wept. And yet, very soon
he's going to declare his wrath. Do we not feel the same things
when we think about and listen to and look at this world around
us? Do we not have these two emotions, both sorrow and anger? Don't we? When we see all around
us like a lot, we're vexed, we're vexed with the conversation of
the wicked, we're vexed with all that's going on, all that
we see and we hear, it saddens us. The state of our world saddens
us. It saddens us for our children,
it saddens us But people, and yet it angers us, doesn't it?
Doesn't it anger you what the blasphemy is that you hear all
the time? Doesn't it anger you? These signs, I tell you,
I can't help, I'm pretty observant. I see these, I read everything.
I go by, I just do it. Reflects it. And I can't help
but see these church signs, so-called church signs. Anger, man. And it saddens me at the same
time, what to say about my God and what to say to people, lying
to people. Verse 42, He said this, If thou
hadst known, even thou, Jerusalem, if they had known, Didn't they
know? You remember Paul wrote in Romans,
he said, what advantage then had the Jews? Much. Every way. They were the most
advantaged, favored people on earth, weren't
they? They were given the law and the ordinances and the prophets. They were God's chosen people. God passed by nation after nation
and gave them His law, His mind, His will. Oh, they were so blessed. But now, look at this, verse
43, it says, Thou, it's known, even thou, Jerusalem, at least
in this thy day. What day? Today is salvation. They talked about waiting on
the Christ. Here He is. If anybody would have said, save
me, he'd have done it. Every person. Brother, if anybody
in that city had said, Lord, have mercy, he'd have done it.
He'd showed that. He did that. Lord, no matter
who it was, Zacchaeus, the worst, the last man, he'd have thought
of hanging on a cross, the old thief. Lord, have mercy. OK.
Today. He said, This is thy day. This
is thy day. No. The only day. The things
which belong unto thy peace. The things that will belong to
you. He came. These were supposed
to be his people. And he came to Israel. Peace
on earth. But he didn't go to Egypt. He
went there. But now they're hid from my eye,
hid from my eye. If thou hadst known, if ye only
knew, if they only knew, peace was standing right there. And
if men only knew today, peace, there's real peace to
be had with God. If you only knew. Peace with
God. Here and now. Peace. Today is the day of salvation.
If you only knew. I like thinking about the woman
at the well. Turn with me to Romans 1 while
I'm saying this. Romans 1. I like what he said
to the woman at the well. And she was, you know, a sorry
statement. Don't you know the Lord was sad
for her, but He'd come to save her. What a sorry life she lived. Five men and living with a fellow
now. She had no pea. She was going
to die without God, without Christ. But Christ came for her. A forlorn
woman. And He said, If you knew who
it was that asked thee, or who it was that spoke unto thee,
not asked, but spoke unto thee, you would ask and He would give
you living water. If you knew, you would ask and
He would give. If you knew, you'd ask, and he'd
give. That's as simple as it can be.
And he caused us to know. He caused us to ask. And you
know what? He freely gave. The Romans 1 is a declaration,
and here it is again in places we need to commit to memory.
It talks about mankind. It's a summary of man by nature. Romans 1 is irreligious man,
Romans 2 is religious man, and Romans 3 links them all together. But Romans 1, you know this scripture,
verse 18, it says, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness, that which may be known of God. And the Lord just said, if you
knew. Don't they know? Well, they should know. The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven. I hear it all the time. Thunder. Lightning. Flood. Hurricanes. It's a blast of his nostrils.
That's what Scripture said. Tornadoes. Whirlwind. He had
his way in a whirlwind. On and on it goes. It's clearly
said. His eternal power and God-head.
It goes on down to say, but they're without excuse. Verse 21, when
they knew God, when they did know something, see something
of God's works, they glorified Him not as God. Neither were
they thankful. They became vain. So their foolish
hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became foolish. That's why God says the wisdom
of this world is foolish, because they don't even believe God is.
They believe man's God. How foolish can you be? And all
these things, so many things are strong delusion. Change the
glory of God, the incorruptible God, into image. The first image
is man. So God gave him up. Gave him
over. It goes on to say, change the truth of God into a lie,
and that's religion. Worship and serve the creature,
man, earth, more than the Creator. He's blessed forever. Amen. So God gave them over. And it
goes on down to say, then they became filled with unnatural
affection. And you know how these things
are more pronounced now than ever. They've always been that.
Even in our lifetime. But now it's coming out. And
it's like Isaiah 3. They're not even, not ashamed
of it anymore. They declare their sin like Sodom.
And when Sodom got that way, it says, God, their cry came
up into his ears. And he said, I'm coming. I'm
busy. I'm going to come down and visit you. And see if it's as bad as
it is. That tells, he knew, it's to
tell us he's coming again. Like the days of Noah, whole
earth corrupted his way, full of violence. And God said, that's
it. And oh, it's more pronounced
now, there's more people than ever now. And man's more brazen,
he glories in his shame, and he's ashamed of God's glory.
So, look at verse 30. They're back biters and haters
of God. Haters of God. It doesn't say
that. You need to know where that is.
When we say that men hate God, that's where it's found. Okay,
verse 32. They know the judgment of God
that those that commit such things are worthy of death, but not
only do it, but they have The pleasure, the glory in it, they
gloat and they're proud of it. They come out proud. And Isaiah says they're going
to reward themselves for that. Reward themselves. Look at, now
let's go on. Go back to our text. Back to
our text in Luke 19. No, he says, if thou hadst known
the things which belong unto thy peace. Peace. Peace with
God. God is angry with the wicked.
I was going to have you turn to Psalm 5, 5, and Psalm 7, 11,
and Psalm 11, 5, 11, 7, all those verses that talk about God hating
workers of iniquity. That's what it said. God's angry
with the wicked. Religion today says God's not
mad at you. Well, that's not what the Scripture says He is.
It says God is angry with the wicked every day. Does it say
that? You know it says that. Well,
judgments turn way backward. That's as if you deny. Judgments
turn way backward. The truth's followed in the streets.
They cannot, they won't have it in their church building.
Well, it's in here, thank God. And the fear of the Lord is too. Well, peace. Peace. How can we have
peace with an angry God? You see, this is... Religion says God loves you and
Christ died for you and wants this and that's it. God's not
angry with you. In other words, peace, peace. There is no peace. No, no, no, no, no. You accept
him. He's an offer. You let him into
your heart. It's all up to you to make peace
with God. No, it's not. One thing makes peace with God,
and all of God's people know that. Right? If peace comes any other way,
why did Jesus Christ die on the Calvary stretch? Why did He shed
His precious blood? I could ask anybody that's heard
the truth, how do you have peace with God? One way, the blood
of Jesus Christ. He made peace with us by the
blood of His cross. And angry God, the wrath of God
was poured out on Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree. He was made
sin. He was made us. And God was angry with the wicked
and ought to be angry with us. Pour out His wrath on His Son.
He pleased the Lord to bruise Him. God killed His own Son to make
peace for us. The chastisement, the whipping,
the Lord took a severe beating and blood flowed from his body
and the Lord allowed those men to do that because that's what
the chastisement of our peace, the stripes, the law that should
lay on our back was laid on him. Peace with God. And it's the
most blasphemous thing you can say to say about somebody, he
made his peace with God. Now, hopefully, you know, some
in the end realize it. And Jesus Christ made a peaceful
man. In verse 42, he says, These things
are hid from thine eyes. Hid from thine eyes. Hid by God. Isaiah 6, he told Isaiah, Blind
their eyes, stop their ears, harden their heart. Go preach.
They have eyes, but they're not going to see. They have ears,
but they're not going to hear. He said, blind them. Shut their ears. Harden their heart. They'd heard
it. They'd heard plenty. And now
he says, no more. I don't want to hear any more. I don't want to hear it. Hidden by God. God hides. Satan. 2 Corinthians 4 talks about the
God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe
not. Isn't it so? Men harden their own hearts.
Men shut their own ears. Don't they? Didn't Paul say in
the last days men will turn away their ears from the truth unto
fables? Prophesy a smooth thing. We don't want to hear the truth,
okay? You'll never hear it then. It's sad. It's just both sad
and... Oh, how blessed are our eyes, they
say. How blessed are our ears, they hear. That's what I wanted to get to.
You know how merciful and gracious and pitiful the Lord has been
to us? Everybody all around us believes
all this. And who am I? And what is my
house that He brought me here, that He's revealed this to me? What a blessing. So he goes on,
and let's just go quickly. Verse 43 says the day shall come
upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee.
They're going to encompass thee. They're going to surround you.
They're going to be entrenched all around you, enemies, and
surround you and keep you in and you're not going to get out. Brethren, we were brought out
like a lot, weren't we? Out of this world. The Lord being
merciful to us. Jericho. Remember, Jericho was
surrounded by Joshua. The Lord did it. The Lord sent
these people for judgment against an unbelieving, sinful city,
Jerusalem. And Jericho, okay, who did he
bring out? He did bring somebody out. He
sent two men in there to bring out a harlot. and whoever's with
her in the house under that letter. What mercy! Don't you know she's
singing all the way to Jerusalem to meet Joshua? Oh, how merciful! Praise God for His sovereign
mercy and electing grace brought her out. But the rest See, we're hedged about, but
so is the world. They're surrounded and they're
not going to get out. The Lord's taking us out of this
world. He's going to take His people
out of this world and He's going to destroy them. Read on. He says, He's going to lay thee
with the ground, thy children with them. Oh, it's saying it.
But I believe the children will have mercy. And I shall not leave
in thee one stone upon another. This is not the first time he
said that. He came to Jerusalem. It's not
the first time he cleared the temple out. And what a picture
this is. The first time he came as an
adult to Jerusalem, 30 years old, he plaited a scourge. He made a whip and went in there
and cleaned the temple out. Remember that? Well, this is
just a few years later, and it's right back the way it was. But he said back then, he told
his disciples, there's not going to be one stone left standing
on another. What does that mean? Well, that temple was destroyed,
okay? Every stone was torn down. But there's one stone. right
there on the corner, for all to see. You've got to say, don't
move that one. There's no stone going to be
left on top of that. Are you with me? It's an ivory
stone, but that one, everybody's going to see. Just like when
the Lord destroyed the world by flood, you remember? All the
highest buildings that man erected, the greatest monuments that man
erected, that were covered with water. The mountains, the hills,
everything high and lofty on this earth was covered with water.
And after it's all over, when it's all... There was one thing
that rose above it all. The whole world, if they could
see it, they'd see one thing. An ark. See this world as it is. And
right there is the salvation of God. And inside are eight
people that God saved in supper and mercy. Isn't that something? No, there's not going to be one
stone left standing on another. Because thou knewest not the
time of thy visitation. Visitation. Now when you visit
somewhere, you don't live there. You come to visit. You're not
staying there. You're coming to visit in our
Lord. God visited us. God came down to this despicable
place like he did to Sodom. Wasn't he merciful to Lot? Wasn't
he so merciful? He came down to visit. It was
a time of salvation. It wasn't. He came to save old
Lot. And our Lord came to this earth
to visit this earth, and He came to save, seeking to save that
which is lost. And they were all a bunch of
sorry sons of Jacob. And He saved every one of them.
But He's coming again. He's going to pay the visit again.
But He's not in salvation. And you can look that up for
yourself in Deuteronomy 32 and other places. The next time,
He's going to visit it in Ram. Well, He goes on to say, And
he went into, it goes on to say, he went into the temple. And
he began to cast out them that sold therein and them that bought.
And brethren, I don't need to try to describe to you what his
face must have looked like and what he was doing. And they called
him General Jesus. But I'm telling you, these were
men that had money. They had lots of money on his table. There
was lots of them, lots of money, their prized possession, and
they guarded it with their dear life. And they might have had
swords and knives and everything to guard that money. And our
Lord came in there. And they fled like rabbits. And
he took that money like it's garbage and dumped it. And then whipped those sheep
and goats and everything. Cleaned his house out. And he
didn't have a sweet look on his face. Did he? No, he did not. And he didn't
say this In kindness. He said it in wrath and anger.
He said, my house is a house of prayer. You've made it a den
of thieves. And isn't that, Brother Stephen,
don't we see that today? Clearly. Clearly said it angers us, doesn't
it? But on the other hand, we know some people are right in
the middle of that. Don't we? And don't you feel sorry for
them? You were. You were, you were, you were,
weren't you? Right in the middle of that. Huh? Right in the middle of that. By God. Behold the goodness and the severity
of the Lord. It really is sovereign mercy,
isn't it? Salvation really is sovereign mercy. A den of thieves. They robbed God of His glory. They're making merchandise of
men's souls. The love of money is what it's
all about. And he taught, he went on in that temple after
he cleared it out. And what picture is this in?
He cleanses his temple. I wrote a message on that. The
Lord cleansed his temple. His house is a house of prayer. That's what this is. That's what
we do here. Call on our Lord. And a house
where he teaches daily his word. He taught the truth. But the
chief priests and the scribes and the chief people, those that
were somebody, the high and the mighty, the noble, sought to
destroy him and wanted no part of him or of the truth. And they couldn't do it, though.
I like this last line. I'll close with it. It says,
all the people were very attentive to hear him. The common people
heard him gladly. I used to love Joe. You'd always
ask Joe, how are you? He'd say, common. Remember that? He always said that. How are
you? Common. And boy, did he love to hear the gospel. Common
people do. Common old sinners do. And I
like this. Did you read? That's why we like
this. What does the margin say? It says they hanged on Him. They hanged on Him. Well, there's
a whole other message, Brother John. This is that nail in a
sure place that we hang on. We hang our souls on. We're hanging
on His every word, aren't we? Destroy Him? No. We want to hear
him live with him forever. That's the true people of God.
Okay, stand with me.