Knowing the Time of your Visitation

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Amen. Please turn your Bible to Luke chapter 19. Luke chapter 19, we'll be looking at verses 41 through 46.

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She is weeps over Jerusalem. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word.

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And when he drew near, he saw the city. He wept over it saying, would that you, even you had known on this day, the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and him you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you.

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And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation.

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And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold saying to them, it is written. My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.

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Amen. You may be seated. Dear heavenly father, we ask that you would open our eyes today that we would not be those who are blinded, not be those who are unable to see because we do not know the time of ours visitation, but that as you visit us today, as you are our

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King today, demanding our obedience, that we would bend the knee, that our eyes would be open.

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In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I have good news for you again this week.

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And this is the same good news that I had for you last week. That is Jesus is King. He is

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King. Here in this passage, he enters into Jerusalem as a King riding on a donkey.

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People sing, Hosannas is apparent that he is going into the city of to take the throne of David because he is the

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King of Judah. And he is still the King today. One of the things that he does as King and subduing people, bringing them about to see the truth.

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So he opens their eyes to know the truth. This is one of the wonderful things about having a

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King is that he opens our eyes to see the truth. But for those who refuse to bend their knee to him, for those who do not submit to them, their eyes are not open to the truth so that they would know and turn from wickedness.

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Instead, they're cast further into blindness, further into unrepentance and hardness of heart and ultimate destruction.

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And this is what is shown to us today through this passage, where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and then beyond that goes into the temple and drives out those who sell.

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So today, as we are visited by the Lord, today is our day of visitation.

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He has visited Jerusalem and they did not know it. He will one day visit again and many people will not know it.

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But today he visits us in a special way as we are gathered together and his presence is with us.

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Will you bend the knee today and your eyes be open to know the truth or will you resist and have your eyes further dimmed?

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In this passage, we see Jesus entering the city and weeping over Jerusalem.

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Why is it that he weeps? Because the city will be destroyed. It will be destroyed.

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He describes us in several ways. He describes things being torn down to the ground. It says, you and your children within you.

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In some translations, it talks about your children being dashed. This is a frequent image from the Old Testament, children being dashed upon the rocks.

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This is a horrifying image, but it is one that shows of the nature of God's justice, being one that does not have particular pity to those who are found guilty.

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There's no aspect of your status that will grant you some kind of free pass in God's justice.

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Rather, those who are not of the truth will be judged. In fact, today in our evening service, we'll be looking at a passage from the

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Old Testament about not giving partiality to the poor. It's the very same concept that is given there, that God is not one who is partial to those who might have more excuses than another.

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The fact that they have more excuses does not mean that they have any kind of meaningful excuse, because all are before God without excuse.

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They are in sin because, as we have heard in our catechism question today, the light of nature and man and the works of God plainly reveal

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Him. We are all held accountable before Him. And so, every last one will face this judgment if they are not forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Moreover, it talks about every stone, they will not leave one stone upon another in you.

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Every single one taken off of the other, this is describing a total destruction, not a partial one that could be recovered from, but a total destruction.

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Now, later, that same image is going to be used of the temple, and there will be more to think about regarding how this applies particularly to the temple in a couple of chapters.

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But here, the statement is about the city itself, about Jerusalem itself.

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Now, what about the identity of Jerusalem? He's weeping over Jerusalem. He's speaking to Jerusalem anthropomorphically, treating

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Jerusalem as though it were a sentient entity, right? And so, what does he mean when he speaks over Jerusalem?

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Well, in part, he's talking about the leadership. The leadership have refused to see

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Him, and because of that, their children, that is the people of Jerusalem, the people of the nation, fail to recognize

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Jesus as well. So, as the leaders reject Him, those under the leaders likewise do not benefit from Jesus Christ's reign.

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This is similar to what was spoken of earlier in verse 14. In verse 14, in the parable of the

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Ten Minas, it says, but His citizens hated Him and sent a delegation after Him, saying,

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We do not want this man to reign over us. So, Jesus is continuing on this theme that was explained in this parable before He started entering

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Jerusalem, that many do not want a king to rule over them. And so, even here,

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He speaks of that, showing that the people do not want a king to rule over them. Before, talked about this in Luke 11, spoke of the prophets, that the prophets had been sent to Jerusalem over and over and over, and the city has repeatedly rejected the prophets, and they've rejected

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Jesus. But now He speaks of Himself not just as a prophet, but as a king. Not only have they rejected the prophets that have come before, but they reject their true

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King, Jesus Christ. Then, and why is it that they are destroyed?

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It is particularly because they have rejected their King. He has come. He has brought what makes for peace.

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It speaks here, would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace.

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What things make for peace? Well, having a king makes for peace. He is able to defend. Moreover, if you are found to be

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His enemy, not only will He not defend you, but He would destroy you. The things that make for peace are submitting to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. If they had known these things, they would have had peace, but they reject

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Him, and so they do not have peace. Then it continues on this passage, and it talks about Him entering the temple and driving out those who sell.

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Now, in the other gospels, there is much more written about this. This is a very short passage, relatively speaking.

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John talks about some time before his ministry, or at the beginning of his ministry, rather, when he goes into the temple and drives out the money changers.

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The other two synoptics talk about this incident, where it's at the end of his ministry that he drives out the money changers.

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And they have much more to say on this, but in Luke, this is very short, it just says that he entered the temple, began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, it is written, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.

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Now, as many of you know, this is a particularly favorite topic of mine. There are all kinds of applications that could be made.

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Just to think of a few, you know, there are church bookstores, and how does it apply to those things?

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There are a lot of people who will use their church network to advance their MLMs, you know, their multi -level marketing, as an independent business owner, or whatever they want to call themselves, right, and try to make

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God's house a house of commerce. There was an incident recently that became pretty well known, where a conference sold very expensive tickets to get access to a special lounge and a meet and greet with the speakers, and different aspects of worship were capitalized on in order to make more money.

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And maybe that money would be used for a good cause. Here, you know, the money is used for a good cause.

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It is for the furthering of worship. The people would have animals in order that they could sacrifice. But are these things that would please

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God if the house is supposed to be kept holy before Him? Now, all of those are relevant implications and applications.

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However, here in this context, the picture is much simpler and more broad than that.

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This is a picture of Jesus coming in and beginning to pursue reformation slash destruction of the current order because they have not received their

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King. If you consider, in all the other synoptics, how this is addressed, it's interesting because in each case, it is sandwiched between something of a different theme.

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In Matthew, the people declare their hosannas as He comes in, and then afterward, the

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Pharisees complain that the people are singing hosannas, and Jesus explains to them. And so there, the context of Him cleansing the temple is that there is insufficient praise.

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In Mark, it's the fig tree. He curses the fig tree. He goes in and cleanses the temple.

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Afterward, He explains the fig tree, and there is insufficient fruit. And that explains the reason that the people will be destroyed, that the city will be destroyed, and the temple needs to be cleansed.

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Here, what is it? It is a failure to submit to the authority of the King. Before this, the passage that we just read,

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He weeped over Jerusalem because they did not know the time of their visitation. What is the time of their visitation?

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It is Jesus arriving, salvation arriving, Him as King. And what happens after this? His authority is challenged in multiple different ways, continuing on.

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Even them asking about taxes is a question about what kind of King are you?

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So in each one of the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the cleansing of the temple is sandwiched within a single theme.

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In Matthew, it's insufficient praise. In Mark, it is insufficient fruit.

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Here, it is insufficient submission to the King. So even though in your ESV you may see this marked out as part of a different section,

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I really believe this is designed to be an illustration of what has come before or an illustration of what it is sandwiched between, which is insufficient submission to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And this demands reformation. This demands kicking people out of His house.

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In fact, if you look at Jeremiah, that passage that is quoted here, where he says, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers, is not talking about, like you might imagine, the activity that is happening in the temple.

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You hear den of robbers, you see commerce, and so you think, okay, the robbing is what is happening in the temple.

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What's going on in the passage that's quoted is the kind of people who are coming into the temple are hypocrites who have the character of robbers.

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And so it's not describing so much the activity happening in the temple, though those are very much valid applications, it is describing the quality of the hypocrites who would enter the temple, so that rather than being a house of those who would be dedicated in prayer, saints, holy ones of God, is instead becoming like a den of robbers filled with all kinds of malefactors, filled with all kinds of evil people.

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So this speaks of hypocrisy. The temple has become full of hypocrites and must be cleansed.

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There are a couple of other things that let us know that this ties in pretty heavily with the passage before. If you notice, and belongs together as a section there, if you notice where it says, had known on this day the things that make for peace, and then later on it talks about the days that are coming in verse 43, for the days will come upon you.

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This is a phrase that is used in Jeremiah 7, that the days are coming, and it talks about the destruction that is coming.

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So even in speaking of, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made a den of robbers, a quote from Jeremiah 7, the previous passage also having an allusion to Jeremiah 7, lets you know that these go together.

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Moreover, there's a tie -in with the preceding passage as well before that one with the triumphal entry.

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Remember that he chose to announce his entry by getting a donkey, riding on the donkey, starting where?

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On the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14 speaks of the Messiah beginning his reign as king from the

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Mount of Olives. And what does it say at the end of Zechariah 14? That on that day, there will no more be a trader in the house of the

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Lord. Trader, T -R -A -D -E -R, right? There will no longer be anyone selling and buying in the house of God.

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So here, by multiple allusions to the same passages that were alluded to in the previous passage,

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Jesus and Luke in recording these things is letting you know that this is not some arbitrary narrative that's happening just later, but this is connecting to the things that have come before as an illustration of it.

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What is he doing when he is cleansing the temple? What is he doing when he is driving people out? He is showing more implications of him entering the city as king.

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Those who are there are not fit for the city, and so the city will be destroyed.

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Those who are in the temple are not fit for the temple, and so they will be run out. How do you make yourself fit for the temple?

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How can you be right before the Lord? The language in which it is spoken of here is in terms of peace and of truth, is in terms of knowing things that would not be hidden before your eyes.

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He said, would that you, even you, this very special city, had known on this day that the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

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You must know the truth. You must not have the truth hidden from you. So it's important to understand that there are different kinds of spiritual blindness.

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Okay, there are different kinds of blindness. One is a natural blindness. Natural blindness would be simply that you do not have the ability in any sense to know something because you have either not encountered it or God has not given you the capacity to understand it in any sense.

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Okay, so there is a natural blindness. One who never hears the gospel at any time ever has a natural blindness to the gospel.

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Now, they would not be held accountable for not hearing the gospel. You know, one who is not capable of understanding in any sense the truth is not held responsible for understanding the truth.

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However, there's another kind of blindness, and that is willful blindness. A willful blindness is blindness where you do have a capacity to understand the truth, but you do not embrace it because of your unrighteousness.

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So while those who never hear the gospel would not be held accountable for not hearing the gospel, what has

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God revealed to them? As mentioned earlier in the catechism question, they are held responsible for the light of nature in man.

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They are held responsible for seeing the works of God. God has made Himself evident to them.

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They will all, every single person, will be held accountable for submitting to God because they have seen

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His truth, His greatness, that He is worthy of honor. They may not have heard the gospel.

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They may not know about the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but they will be held responsible for not submitting to God because they have willfully rejected that.

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Now, moreover, there are those who do hear Jesus Christ and reject Him because of their willful blindness.

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They willfully reject Him because it does not accord with the things that they want. There's a term used in psychology which is called motivated reasoning.

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If you've never heard this describing how people end up coming to conclusions often because the conclusions have implications for them, not so much because they have decided out of pure logic that this thing must be true, but because emotionally they have some investment in getting a particular answer.

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If you think about it, how frequently people reject things just in denial.

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You know, that's another psychological term that people use, right? Denial. That someone will live in denial because they don't like the truth, and so they will just pretend as though it's not true.

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You know, maybe they have a loved one who is dying, and they will pretend as though this is not a reality, and they will be very upset if anyone tries to discuss with them that reality because they don't want to deal with that reality.

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And so they reject the truth because they are motivated to reject the truth.

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Well, this is the case here. Many people are motivated to reject the truth of Jesus Christ. It does not accord with what they would like to hear.

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They would like to hear that they can be their own masters. They would like to hear that nothing is required of them apart from the things that they would like to have required of them, that they are also motivated to know that they are relatively good people, maybe not perfect, but they are certainly not wretched sinners in need of a perfect Savior.

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And so out of willful blindness, they have this motivated reasoning to reject the truth.

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This is willful blindness. So there's natural blindness. There's a willful blindness. Then beyond that willful blindness, there's what is known as judicial blindness.

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Judicial blindness is where God, in having seen that willful rejection of the truth, further hands you over to more rejection of the truth.

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He offers you truth. You reject it. He hands you over to more and more rejection of the truth.

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Whatever natural ability you had had to see the truth, He takes away. He makes your heart harder.

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Look at Pharaoh. Every opportunity where he had, he rejected the truth, and so God hardened his heart.

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You see it go back and forth in Exodus where it says God hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

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What's happening there? Well, it is Pharaoh hardening his heart and God handing over him over further and further to that hardening of heart.

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And that is what happens for so many as they reject the truth of God.

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They are handed over further and further to a rejection of the truth.

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Consider the limited opportunity that you have to hear the truth. When you hear the truth, you can respond to it, or you can put it on the shelf and maybe save it for later.

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Maybe I will listen to that later, or maybe I would just completely reject it right now. Every time you hear the Word of God preached, you have an opportunity to be attentive to it, respond to it with submission, or you have the opportunity to be inattentive, to reject it, to maybe hear hard applications and say,

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I will save those things for later. Or you have the opportunity to know the day of your visitation.

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It says in Esau, in Hebrews 12, verse 17, that he was not able to seek, find repentance, though he sought it with tears.

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There will be a point where you are handed so over to your own blindness.

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If you reject the truth, there is not an opportunity for you to repent because you are so hardened and unable to return to the truth.

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This is what happens to those who would reject it, just as this city rejected the truth, just as the leaders and through the leaders, the people rejected the truth.

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Many people would delay receiving the truth. They hear the truth and they say,

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I will save this for another time. I cannot come to the

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Lord now and ask for His mercy. Now I have to get my life in order, and I will do that at some point. Bend the knee to Him now.

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You will never have your life sufficiently in order to come to Him. Rather, trust in Him today to cleanse your life from whatever sins you have.

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You need Him in order to be forgiven, and you need Him in order to change. You are not going to be able to change yourself.

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You need Him to open your eyes further. If you were to close your eyes, you know, think about this.

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When you close your eyes for a long period of time and you try to open them, it's very hard to see. You wake up in the middle of the night and you turn on the light in the bathroom, and you're not able to see well.

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You have to cover your eyes because your eyes are not able to see what is the light.

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That is what it is like for those who go around in darkness intentionally, is they make themselves more unfit to see the light.

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But then beyond that natural inability, God gives them a judicial blindness so that they are unable to see.

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And you are in a particular danger of that today. Do you hear the Word of God? You are in a position where you are hearing the truth.

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You have the opportunity to respond to it, to hear it with joy, and God further open your eyes, or you have the opportunity to hear it with a tentativeness, with a rejection, and have

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God further blind you. And it does come with both.

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Here it talks about how they, because they did not know the day of their visitation,

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He will not leave one stone upon another. But He speaks also of how those who receive the truth will receive more of it.

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In Luke chapter 8, verse 18, it says, So it says, what is this talking about?

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He says, It is talking about how you hear the truth.

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The ones who receive it receive more of it. The ones who do not receive it receive less of it. And then later on, at the very end of this gospel, we see in verse 45 of chapter 24,

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He opened their minds further to see the truth. If you want to know the truth, if you want to know peace with your

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Maker, this is what you need. You need to have your mind open by the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Yes, He hardens those who reject the truth, but on the flip side of that, there is a great promise that those who receive the truth,

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He will give more and more truth to. He has, in His perfect life, earned for us, not just forgiveness of sins, but He has earned for us

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His Spirit. His Spirit, also called the mind of Christ, in 1 Corinthians 2.

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If you want to know more things about God, if you want to understand

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God more deeply, if you want to understand yourself more deeply, you need the mind of Christ.

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We are, by nature, blind, unable to see the truth apart from the work of the

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Spirit. He has lived a perfect life. He has

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His eyes perfectly open because He has never sinned. And so what He gives us is

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His own mind, His own Spirit, in order that we may see as He sees. He is giving us of His very self in order that we may see.

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You see, this is the nature of this gospel, is not some independent blessing where we enjoy these riches apart from Him.

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Many people think of the various rewards that God gives us as something that is apart from Jesus Christ Himself, but the rewards we get are

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Jesus Christ Himself. That inheritance we have, we have in Him as He is our inheritance, and He is the inheritor.

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What is the openness of mind? What is the wisdom and understanding that we receive?

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It is Him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and understanding are found. He is the one who has perfectly open eyes.

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We have His Spirit through Him. He is giving us His very self. This is the good news for everyone who would bend the knee before Him.

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Their King is one who has the power to subdue the heart and to, beyond subduing the heart in a way of merely changing your will,

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He can change your understanding as well. He can change you to know the truth, to embrace the truth so that you would know who

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God is, so that you would know who you are. The reason why people struggle in this world is because they don't know who

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God is and they don't know who they are. You know, so many self -help books that you would read are simply trying to let you know who you are so that you would understand yourself and be able to manage yourself and engage in some self -control.

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The problem is that apart from knowing Jesus Christ, you cannot know who you are because the most important truths about you are truths in relation to your relationship with God.

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So you must know about Him in order to know about yourself, in order to have the blessings that people are seeking.

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The blessings that they need are the blessings that can be only found in Jesus Christ.

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He is the only one who can give real peace, and that's what He speaks of here is the things that make for peace.

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What kind of peace is He talking about? Well, on one hand, you have the Romans that are coming in, and the

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Romans are going to destroy Jerusalem in 70 A .D. This is what He is prophesying will happen in 70

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A .D. Titus will march on Jerusalem, and He will destroy Jerusalem. And so, in one sense,

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He's talking about peace with external forces. Now, on the other hand, what

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He's letting us know when He comes in and He cleanses the temple and He begins this work of cleansing is that ultimately, those things are just means, and He is the one that will be destroying

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Jerusalem. You know, God speaks of Himself several times in the Old Testament as being the one who will destroy

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Jerusalem. This is not just a work from enemies when you don't have a defender.

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It is also the work of God Himself and His wrath against those who are not found in Jesus Christ because they do not have forgiveness from their sins.

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You need the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's only through Him that you can have peace.

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It's only through having your eyes open that you can have peace. Now, one question that I like to address that often comes up here when we talk about the cleansing of the temple is, is this something that we ought to do if we encounter it?

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If you were in Jesus' shoes, would it be right for you to cleanse the temple? I think the answer is very simply no.

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That Jesus operates as both a prophet and a king here. Okay, He operates as a prophet, symbolizing by this sign act what

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He is doing and what is happening that He will be destroying the city when He cleanses the temple.

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And then additionally, He acts as a king who has authority over the temple. This is called

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His house. He is the son over the house as it describes in Hebrews chapter 3. These are ways that He is operating with a particular authority.

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Now, all that said, it is 100 % appropriate for you to have zeal for the

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Lord as it describes in John 2, right? Jesus says in the context of the cleansing of the temple that happens at the beginning of His ministry, zeal for my

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Father's house will consume me. It is absolutely appropriate for you to have zeal for that house and to wage war against enemy forces in the authority, whatever authorities that God has given you, whatever authority

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He's given you. However, what we see here is Him operating in a particular authority that He has over the temple.

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Additionally, what you should consider here is the opportunity that the city has had for repentance.

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Not only has John the Baptist been sent to tell them to repent, tell them to be baptized, and they have not heeded this warning, but in addition to that,

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John 2 lets us know that Jesus went and cleansed the temple at the very beginning of His ministry. What does that mean?

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He already gave them the warning. And then three years later, at the end of His ministry,

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He comes back and He finds the temple filled with money changers again, and they have not heeded the warning.

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They had the warning, but the time has passed. They no longer have opportunity. How long have you heard the truth?

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How long have you been among the people of God? Now, there are different ways that you can hear the truth, right?

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Not all of this applies just to conversion. Not all of this applies just to bending the knee to Christ in a saving way.

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Now, certainly that does apply. If you do not know Jesus Christ, you must bend the knee or else you will be handed over to a blindness that will ensure your utter destruction.

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He calls out for you. He offers you peace. Come to Him today and you will have peace.

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Yet, for those of you who have already found this kind of peace, no doubt there have been truths given to you related to living in His kingdom, related to that peace, that are often not heeded, that are often rejected.

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You know that there's an area of your life that could use some reformation. The more that you hear that truth proclaimed and the more that you reject it, the harder and harder it is to turn from those things.

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And you would not want to find out that you are not truly of His kingdom of peace.

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But even beyond that, there's a great reward in serving Him. Turn from any of that today and serve

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Him that your eyes may be further opened. Do not reject those truths. Do not be a hypocrite coming into this place.

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This is the house of God, not because these walls are special, but because this gathering is special. He has guaranteed

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His presence in a particular way. And so, as you gather here, do not make this a den of robbers, us all being hypocrites.

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Rather, make this a house of prayer, us being holy people, saints gathered together in true worship.

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And hear the Word of the Lord with submission. Do not be those who would reject

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His Word, resist, or even receive it with hesitancy, but receive it eagerly, especially around conversion.

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Know the day of your visitation. If you are visited with the saving message, if you are visited with the message of faith in Jesus Christ, salvation from the wrath of God, receive that message.

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You know, I think of my grandfather who received a literal visitation from a pastor.

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This was how he was converted. A pastor visited his home when he had started attending a church for the first time.

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The pastor told him, I do not think you are truly saved. You may have started coming to church, but your life does not reflect it.

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And he repented of his sins. He believed the Lord saved him. And if you consider the aspects of this passage that are described here, how

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Jerusalem is addressed, but that destruction goes to the children, think about the opposite of this.

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If you turn from your sin, that blessing very frequently is passed off to your children, to your children's children, and so on.

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The Lord often operates with blessing you in that kind of way.

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But if you would reject, then know how that will affect your children as well. Just as Jerusalem, speaking primarily of the leaders of Jerusalem, have rejected, and then all the children with them.

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You know, my grandfather believed he was the first one in his family to believe. He passed off an excellent spiritual legacy to my father, passed off an excellent one to me.

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I'm passing off one to my children. I believe that each generation has gotten something better than the previous.

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This is something that can be true for you and for your family as well. The Lord is incredibly generous in the way that He blesses.

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So that's true with conversion. Know the times of visitation in your family, that as the

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Lord exposes sins within your family, ways that your household is not ordered as it ought.

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Do not reject these things and grow hard to them. You know how it is.

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You see these things. You see these things that need to be improved. Life is busy. You think that you will address this later.

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Years later, you realize that you deal with it. And where has time gone?

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If you could just go back in time and address those things, you would hit that button on the time machine and do it.

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But time has slipped away. There's not the opportunity for repentance. Not only can you not fix those years, but now your heart is in a place where it's harder to turn from those sins.

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Know the times of visitation in your family. Be on the lookout for these offerings of peace that the

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Lord would give for times when He comes and says, I am King. Submit to Me in the way that I have called you.

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Your eyes will be opened further. If you reject, your eyes will be further blinded. Know the times of visitation in this church.

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So you are part of this church, and we have a number of visitors today. If you have a church of your own, know the times of visitation in your church.

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There are many times that the Lord addresses serious sins within a church. Many people are, like it describes here, these people who are using

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God as a means to an end rather than the end itself, just want their own comforts.

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And so they try to ignore these things or play them down or remove the calls to repentance so that there would not be any kind of correction of the matter.

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Consider all the different letters that are written in Revelation, all the letters to the churches and their problems.

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The average church is not a church that has no problems, but most people think of their churches that way, as a church that has no problems.

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Just read the letters. It's really apparent. Most churches have serious problems that need to be addressed.

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When the Lord reveals these things, know your time of visitation. Do not be hesitant to these truths, or the

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Lord will cast the church into further blindness, or the Lord will open your eyes further if you heed

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His Word. Know the times of visitation in the culture. Culture, society at different times has different blind spots.

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This should be evident to anyone whose eyes are even just a little bit open. There are massive blind spots in our culture.

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When the Lord exposes these through whatever means He does, heed those things and open your eyes so that you would know the truth further.

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Do not just kind of shrug your shoulders at these things, seeing these issues in the culture, but rather turn far from them.

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Be willing to be counter -cultural. Be willing to be hated by the world and following the truth.

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No doubt Jesus' disciples are hated by the Pharisees, are ultimately hated by the large masses that will gather at the crucifixion such that Jesus' own disciples are terrified into being silent,

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Peter even denying Him. Be bold. Be ready to be counter -cultural as you know the day of your visitation, even within society, as the

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Lord exposes sins. Yesterday, someone was speaking to me about the fact that during COVID only 17 percent of the churches did not reopen.

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Okay, 17 percent of the churches did not reopen. I responded with something that caught him by surprise.

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I said, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord it did not reopen. God is glorified when

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He makes these calls to repentance, asks people to bend the knee in a serious way, and when they do not bend the knee,

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He hands them over to destruction. He hands them over to blindness. What happens when their eyes are open?

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So many of the churches that did well through COVID ended up flourishing through it. So many that rejected the call to serious repentance and to worship

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Him as they ought, rather than cowering in fear and anxiety. Which churches were blessed?

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Which ones were not? Heed that day of visitation. Was that not a day of visitation?

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And there will be a final day of visitation. There will be a final day of visitation, and it will not be a day when there will be an opportunity.

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It will be like this time where Jesus had visited. He had cleansed the temple early on in His ministry, and now

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He is coming again saying, there's no more chance. You had your chance, but now your eyes are closed completely because you did not heed.

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That is how it will be on that final day. There will be no more chance. There will be no more opportunity.

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Hear now while you can. Hear now while you can, and do it with an understanding that there will be a need for courage, first of all.

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There will be a need for courage. Many times doing those things which pertain to peace, as Jesus says here, things that make for peace look like war.

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What does it look like at this time to join with Jesus Christ who's entering the city as a new king when there already is a

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Tetrarch sitting on the throne, when there already is an emperor? That looks like war. Many times the things that make for peace are going to look like war.

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People will seek their own comforts and not be ready for that. Go forward with courage, hearing what

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He has to say and serving the Lord. And do so also knowing the particular responsibilities that He has given you.

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He speaks to Jerusalem, and He speaks to the implication for the children. Now, maybe it is the case that you are just responsible for yourself, and you have a very limited range of responsibilities.

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But you, being responsible for your own soul, must respond to Him in submission.

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But if you are one who is over others, if you are a husband, you are a father, a mother, and you have souls in your care, if you're in any position of spiritual leadership, then how much more is this true for you?

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Your ability to open your eyes to the truth, receive the truth has implications for those underneath you.

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And given that, if you have a understanding of church authority and you realize it's not found all in the pastor, but it is found in the authority that God has blessed the congregation with, the keys of the kingdom, that means that you are not just responsible for yourself if you are part of a congregation.

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You are responsible for all the others in the congregation as well. So you cannot act in a way where you think that your own blindness is that you're the only one who will pay for that.

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Rather, blood may be on your hands as those that you are responsible for, your brothers and sisters, especially those who may look up to you, lie in the balance as well.

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If the Lord calls out for you, He has terrible threatenings, terrible warnings that those who would engage in willful blindness will be handed over to judicial blindness.

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And there is a limited window of opportunity today, but He has a great promise as well, that those who heed

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His call, those who turn to Him with faith, have their eyes further opened, their minds opened to understand more of the truth, to experience the fullness of His peace, to have

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His Spirit, to have Him Himself. You can enjoy the blessing of Christ Himself as you hear

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Him and as you do not reject His truth, but receive it willingly at every time it goes forward, every time that He brings it to mind, every time it is spoken to you, every time that His Spirit is working.

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Hear His truth, respond to it, and He richly blesses, giving you the fullness of His Son.

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And if He has given us His Son, how much more will He give us all things? Amen.

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Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this promise that You have given in Scripture.

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We thank You for the warning that You have given, that there is a judicial blindness that goes along with willful blindness, but we thank

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You for the promise that You have given. There is a greater wisdom, a greater understanding that is given with heeding the words of Your Son.

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We pray that our knees would be in submission to Him today and that You would find this temple, this place where You are present and You are worshiped, to be a house of prayer rather than a den of robbers.

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We ask that You would be pleased with it and that You would build it up, that we would heed our day of visitation as You visit us today with Your word.