The Result of Rejection Luke 13 Vs 31 35

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January 21, 2023 - Morning Worship Service Faith Bible Church - Sacramento, California Message "The Result of Rejection" Luke 13:31-35

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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Faith Bible Church. It's a blessing to be here together on the
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Lord's Day. And he has set this aside uniquely for us to remember him and to gather as believers and to enjoy each other's fellowship and company and grow in the word and to sing.
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And remember, you are the choir here, so don't be afraid to exercise your vocal cords.
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OK. Just a couple announcements. Next week is the annual business meeting.
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It'll be immediately following the morning service. You're all welcome to be there to see what transpires and what goes on.
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Missionary of the Month is Ellie Driesinger. And Driesinger, many of you have met her.
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So she's pretty close to the church family. And we thank the Lord for her and her ministry and all that she is doing in South America and Brazil.
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The next biblical counseling class is going to be on Saturday the 27th at 930.
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That's next week. And prayer meeting tonight at 6, Lord willing. And so please come out to that.
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And I guess another word of encouragement for Bible study, Bible studies every week at 930 every
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Sunday morning. And maybe it means getting up just a little bit earlier, but you're all welcome.
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And it's really a rich time of opening God's word as pastor goes through the Psalms. And it's really a blessing.
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So if you could work it in, and that would be, I know you would be blessed by it. So just pray about that,
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OK? I just want to share one verse with you, as our confidence should be in the
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Lord. It comes from the Lord. Psalm 91 says, he who dwells in the secret place of the
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Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the
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Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress. My God, in him I will trust.
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And I read a devotional this week, and it was all about why wouldn't God want to do all that he does for us?
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He created us. He saved us. He's blessed us with eternal life. He will go to great lengths, infinite lengths, to help us as believers.
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And so that gift is there. It's there to be used and to be taken and to be blessed by it.
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So sometimes we get caught up in our own little avenue of day -to -day life and trials even.
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But remember that God is in the midst of it, and he will bless you and give you all the tools you need.
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They're there. They're in his word. We just have to take advantage of it. So just a good reminder,
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I thought. And remember that he always keeps his promises. Well, before we get started, let's go to the
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Lord in prayer. Lord God, we thank you, Father, that you do bless us through your word, through the actions that you've done and shown through your son,
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Jesus Christ. May we have that confidence, Lord, knowing that you are there always, that we can trust you, that you are a promise keeper, that you give us the ability and the strength to make it through each day, every moment, and to do that with joy,
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Father, not just with happiness. And happiness does come, as we shared, discussed this morning,
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Lord. But the joy, it's deeper. It's there, realizing and focusing on what you have done on behalf of us,
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Father. So thank you that you have saved those that have put their faith and trust in you. God, we ask this morning that you would open our ears and our hearts,
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Lord, to be receptive to your word, that the Holy Spirit would bless each one as we hear from scriptures and through Pastor Father.
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May you bless him and go before him, Father, as he desires to impart what you've placed upon his heart.
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And Father, we thank you for all the folks that have been involved in putting these services together, all the way from the soundboard to the musicians to the overheads to the bulletins, everything,
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Lord, we thank you, and it is a gift, and we do not take it for granted. So God, bless us this morning, and Lord, may you be honored in all that we do, and help us to be upright and worship you in a worthy manner.
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So God, thank you for blessing us with faith, Bible Church, and we are just, may you be pleased,
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Lord, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So if you'd stand together with us, with me, our first song is
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His Mercy is More. We don't even tap, begin to tap the depths of His mercy, because it is infinitely deep, and we need about this much if we ask for it and call upon it, but it's available for us.
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So let's sing His Mercy is More. ♪ We have done a mission for you,
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Lord ♪ ♪ All knowing ye counts of their sum ♪ ♪ Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore ♪ ♪
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Our sins they are many, His mercy is more ♪ ♪
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What patient would wait as we constantly roll ♪ ♪
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Our Savior is calling us home ♪ ♪ He welcomes the weakest, the mildest, the poor ♪ ♪
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Our sins they are many, His mercy is more ♪ ♪
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Praise the Lord, His mercy is more ♪ ♪
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Our sins they are many, His mercy is more ♪
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Today's scripture reading, Nehemiah chapter nine, verses 22 through 27.
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You also gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted them to them as a boundary.
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They took possession of the land of Sion, the king of Heshbon and the land of Og, the king of Bashan.
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You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven and you brought them into the land which you had told their fathers to enter and possess.
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So their sons entered and possessed the land and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the
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Canaanites. And you gave them into their hand with their kings and the peoples of the land.
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To do with them as they desired, they captured fortified cities and a fertile land.
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They took possession of houses full of every good thing, hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, fruit trees in abundance.
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So they ate, were filled and grew fat, reveled in your great goodness, but they became disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets who had admonished them so that they might return to you and they committed great blasphemies.
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Therefore, you delivered them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them.
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But then they cried to you in the time of their distress. You heard from heaven and according to your great compassion, you gave them deliveries who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors.
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♪ One is your Lord, Christ alone,
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Christ alone ♪ ♪ What is our hope, we comfort this.
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♪ ♪ Let our souls deliver, oh Christ, deliver us.
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♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah.
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♪ ♪ Christ alone is his grace and goodness.
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♪ ♪ Who stands on the shore, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah.
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♪ Please turn with me to Luke chapter 13,
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Luke chapter 13 verses 31 through 35. On that very day some
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Pharisees came saying to him, get out and depart from here for Herod wants to kill you.
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And he said to them, go tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and the third day
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I shall be perfected. Nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.
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Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.
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How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.
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See your house is left to you are desolate and assuredly I say to you, you shall not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
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Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that you are so merciful to us that you desire to show your mercy in delivering us from our sin.
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And we pray that unlike Jerusalem that rejected Christ, that you would help us to respond in faith, to gratefully receive
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Jesus as our Lord and Savior, to go under his wing for protection from the judgment to come in Jesus name, amen.
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So after a series of urgent warnings to respond to Jesus, today
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Jesus unpacks what it means for people when they reject him.
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Jesus has urged through various parables and imageries of how important it is to respond to him in faith, whether the fig tree that has been barren and is about to be cut off unless it bears fruit or other images of the urgently upcoming judgment where God's people need to respond lest they experience his wrath.
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And this morning we will go over what happens when people do not respond to Jesus in faith.
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This concept of judgment is not a popular message to preach in this culture, but it is an urgently, it is an urgently important one.
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People have denied God's authority to judge really ever since Genesis 3.
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Notice what serpent says, surely you shall not die. That's when
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God made it clear that you will surely die if you disobey. And that's been just the cultural trend since really
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Genesis 3. People want to doubt or deny God's authority to judge.
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This morning we need to come before scripture and see judgment as how scripture describes.
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Judgment is righteous. Judgment flows from God's righteousness because it is the natural implication of a holy
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God before the sinful world. God would cease to be righteous and holy if he does not judge.
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God would cease to be God if he does not judge. What we also need to see is that God doesn't just judge, he also shows mercy.
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We have a beautiful imagery of Jesus figuratively describing himself as a hand that would shield her children under her wings.
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Oftentimes we don't see this motherly compassion of God.
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We have the God incarnate who describes his longing heart to see his people saved as long as they respond in faith, as long as they go to him.
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And how he will respond to them is that of a motherly hand who is protecting her brood.
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We need to see that kind of God and how we see that best is on the cross.
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Jesus compassionately, mercifully, and tenderly shields us from the judgment to come by facing the wrath of God that we deserved on the cross.
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And he did so willingly. He did so out of his desire to see his people saved.
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Although this passage is originally to Israel after Jerusalem is the capital, we are also in a place to respond to Jesus Christ.
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And that's because many of us in this room have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you've been here for more than a week, you've heard the gospel.
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And we need to respond. We need to respond to Jesus' offer of salvation.
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Or just like Jerusalem, we are about to face judgment from God.
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Today's main point is what is the result of rejecting Christ? What is the result of rejecting
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Christ? First, no one can thwart Jesus' salvation through his prophetic death.
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No one can thwart Jesus' salvation through his prophetic death. Now, just as Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of heaven and the necessity of Israel all to respond, some
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Pharisees warned Jesus, get out and depart from here for Herod wants to kill you. Herod here is not the same
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Herod who massacred all the baby boys in Bethlehem according to Matthew 2. That was his father.
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This is Herod Antipas. It's one of his sons whom
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Herod the Great didn't kill off. Just as the apple does not fall far from the tree,
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Herod Antipas was a brutal ruler over Galilee, which is north of Jerusalem.
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This probably means that Jesus is still in Galilee ministering on his way to Jerusalem to die.
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He is still ministering in Herod Antipas' jurisdiction. Now, who was
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Herod Antipas? In the New Testament, he is the one who ordered
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John the Baptist to be imprisoned because he prophetically spoke against him marrying his sister -in -law and his sister -in -law was not a widow.
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So, that's just debauchery, not only in our culture, but back then too, even more so, it went against the law.
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So, John the Baptist speaks out against it as a prophet because that's what the prophet does. He's the mouthpiece for God.
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He speaks out against sin and Herod decides to imprison him, shut him up.
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Now, moreover, after a rash vow in Mark 6, he makes a vow to his,
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I guess, his sister -in -law's daughter and he says,
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I will give you anything up to half of my kingdom. And the sister -in -law's daughter, just as perversely as her mother, asks for John the
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Baptist's head on a platter. So, Herod beheads
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John the Baptist in prison. And one can imagine such a cruel king with his record of cruelty would unflinchingly do something similar to Jesus who is speaking and preaching about the kingdom of God.
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So, these Pharisees tell Jesus in advance, get out of here.
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He can do it. He wants to. He wants to kill you. If he wants to do it, he can do it.
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He's done it. And this may be surprising that the Pharisees want to save Jesus from dying because, after all, they have been challenging
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Jesus' authority and teaching. Now, without knowing their heart, we cannot comment on what motivated them to warn
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Jesus. Luke doesn't tell us. God doesn't tell us.
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That means we really can't know. We don't really need to know. What's important in this text is that Jesus does not follow their warning.
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Rather, he has a message back to Herod. Go tell that fox, behold,
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I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and the third day I shall be perfected.
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Jesus does not even call Herod by his title, King Herod or Tetrarch, one of the four rulers of that region.
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Rather, he calls him fox. Now, what does that mean? For one, fox can describe someone who is deceitful.
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And that's how we would understand that when we call someone a fox.
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And that was the Greek idea, too. In the context of the
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Old Testament, fox or jackal, depending on your translation, characterized destruction.
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Lamentations 518, because of the Mount of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
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Foxes are characters that destroy. Foxes are characters that walk upon destruction.
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And in knowing what Herod did to John the Baptist and what he wants to do to Jesus in Jerusalem, fox signifies a destructive person, a cruel individual, a brutal man.
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And in Jesus' message to Herod, he emphasized what his ministry has been all about.
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He is casting out demons and he is healing the sick. He is directly opposing the kingdom of Satan.
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He is directly reversing sin and effects of sin. And his will is to continue in that ministry.
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The phrase today and tomorrow and the third day may be figurative to show a continuous succession of events of fulfilling his plan, redemptive plan.
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And the reason why I say this is because if Jesus is still in Galilee, which is Herod's jurisdiction, he is more than three days away from Jerusalem.
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So what Jesus is saying this day, tomorrow and so on, I will continue.
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Herod will not stop me. And he will go to Jerusalem as planned.
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And although the original Jewish audience may not have understood it, Christians who read
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Luke after the crucifixion and resurrection can appreciate the allusion to the third day.
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Ultimately, Jesus does complete his mission on the third day when he rises from the dead after dying for our sin.
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The reader and Jesus know even King Herod will not be able to stop God's divine plan of redemption to save the world through his son,
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Jesus Christ. The time for Jesus' death is not yet. The location of Jesus' death is not here.
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In verse 33, Jesus elaborates the completion of his plan. Nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.
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The irony here is that Herod cannot put Jesus to death on his own turf with his own army because Jesus has to complete his divine mission, which ends in his death in Jerusalem, not in Galilee, but in Jerusalem.
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Jesus will be divinely secure from any efforts and death traps that can be possibly set by Herod in Galilee because his mission is not fulfilled until he dies in Jerusalem.
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The reason for this is stated in the second half of verse 33, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.
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This is, in fact, the fourth prediction of Jesus' death in the gospel according to Luke.
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We first saw it in Luke 9 .22, 9 .44, and then 12 .50.
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God's plan of redemption has always included the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, and he has to be killed outside of Jerusalem because all throughout
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Scripture, there's a pattern of God's people rejecting
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God's prophets in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem represents the epitome of God's people.
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It is the center of worship in all of Israel. After all, all of God's people are commanded to gather to celebrate
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God a couple of times a year in Jerusalem. The irony here is rich.
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Jesus does not have to fear Herod in Galilee because it will be the holy city that will turn against him to kill him.
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It will be the city of worship, the city of God, not the wicked king that will murder the
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God incarnate. This is important because there is this theology that believes that how
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God unfolded his redemptive plan was like a cosmic chess game. So they believe that it's not that God sovereignly ordained certain events, but rather he has to figure things out as a master chess player.
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The analogy here breaks down because a master chess player, even if he is the greatest in the world, cannot omnisciently know what's going to happen.
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He has to figure things out. He has to compute. Although faster than any one of us, he still has to compute depending on what the other opponent has done.
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What that means is in order to view God's redemptive plan as a cosmic chess game,
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God has at one point put his redemptive plan in jeopardy. But what we see here is that at no point in history was
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God's redemptive plan for the world ever at risk of failing. If God was a master chess player and he has to choose the right moves at the right time to ensure that Jesus dies on the cross for our sin, that would be a scary world to live in.
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A world in which there's even 1 % in which
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God can lose. There's a 1 % chance of Jesus not dying on the cross.
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The text, however, goes against it. God is more than just a chess player.
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He sovereignly ordained Jesus' death on the cross and at no point was his salvation plan ever at risk.
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God's accuracy for salvation is not 98 % but 100 % and it has been so for all of history.
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God's plan of salvation has been in motion and no one can possibly stop him.
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And that was true back then 2000 years ago and it's true now. No one will be able to stop
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God's full restoration. And in fact, it's all written down to be fulfilled.
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And this is why Jesus knew that Herod was not a threat when he was ministering in Galilee. Herod and his whole army stood no chance against God.
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Jesus totally trusted in his father's plan of salvation. And he knew there was nothing that could prevent
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God's plan from taking place. And his plan of redemption is focused on his own death on the cross in Jerusalem.
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And that's perhaps the biggest irony of all. When the wicked rulers, Herod and Pilate and the religious establishment and even
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Satan and all of his demons rejoiced at the piercing death of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
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And they rejoiced because they thought they successfully killed God himself. Yet, that was precisely the perfection of God's plan of salvation from sin.
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When Jesus was crucified, he bore all of our sin which plagued us since Genesis 3.
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And was punished on our behalf. His crucifixion in Jerusalem was the ultimate deliverance of the whole world from sin.
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And nothing in all creation was able to stop God from saving us. What once the enemies of God thought was the sign of God's defeat, the cross.
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The cross actually was the ultimate sign of God's victory. After the cross, sin had no power over his people.
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After the cross, death served no threat to God's people.
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It is only the beginning of new life in Christ.
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And this is crucial for us this morning. Because if King Herod could not stop God 2000 years ago, what makes us think that we could stop
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God from saving us? Some of us, whether implicitly or explicitly believe that we are too far for God to save us.
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And this is even after you might have trusted in Christ for your salvation.
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You may sin one day and it's gruesome, it's cruel, it's wicked.
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And you look at yourself and you think, how could
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God possibly save me? How could it be that I'm ever saved?
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But what this text tells us is that for those who trust in Christ and his atoning death on the cross, our salvation is not ours to lose.
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If we believe that at any moment that our salvation is at risk because of our action or thought or word, we have an improper and frankly an inappropriate view of who
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God is and what he's done. If King Herod and all the armies could not stop
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God's redemptive plan in Galilee, in his own jurisdiction, what makes us think that we could when we have no jurisdiction?
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Salvation is purely God's jurisdiction. We have no claim over that.
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It is not ours to earn. That also means it is not ours to lose.
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We cannot lose our salvation because that would be claiming that we could successfully oppose
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God. And even in our full wickedness, we cannot oppose
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God's full grace shown to us on the cross. Now, how does
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Jesus respond to Jerusalem's unfaithfulness? Although Jesus longs for a faithful response, those who reject him are under judgment until they recognize the blessing of the
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Messiah. Although Jesus longs for a faithful response, those who reject him are under judgment until they recognize the blessing of the
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Messiah. The next two verses show us Jesus' lament over Jerusalem.
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Just as he is about to face the prophet's fate to be killed in Jerusalem, the city of God, the city of David, he gives a prophetic lament over the city.
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Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.
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Jesus starts to lament rather emotionally when he addresses the city.
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In the Bible, when something is called twice, it denotes deep sorrow.
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When David lost Absalom, he said, Oh, Absalom, Absalom, my own son. Even if he's the son that's rebelled against him, he was sorrowful.
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Jesus here is sorrowful over a city that has and will reject
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Jesus. It is important to note that when Jesus is calling out to Jerusalem, he's not talking about the walls and the buildings.
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It's not the building structures that Jesus is crying over as if they're falling down. But he is lamenting over the response of the very people of God who make up the city.
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And of course, Jerusalem represents the whole of Israel, just as Washington, D .C.
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sometimes represents the whole of America, right? In Washington, we have decided, right?
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It is the people who kill God's prophets, not walls and structures. The act of killing
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God's prophet becomes more detailed in the following line. Jerusalem stones those who are sent to her.
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Stoning was not just any public execution as if it's beheading, but rather it was a corporate method of execution.
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It wasn't just a few wicked rulers who decided, let's behead John the Baptist's head, right?
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That was a personal decision by Herod. Stoning is a corporate decision made by the people of God.
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The whole city was involved in rejecting God's past messengers.
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The very people who ought to have gladly received God's messengers because it is the city of God have a gruesome tendency of corporately murdering
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God's messengers together in union. Now, what would have happened if Jerusalem actually responded in faith?
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How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hand gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.
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This is a picture of what could have been if God's people actually responded and received God. The image is that of a motherly hand tenderly gathering
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God's people under her wings for protection and provision. This may strike us odd because it shows this motherly character of God's mercy and grace.
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And oftentimes when we think of God the Father or fathers in general, that's far from it.
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This tender care may be foreign to us in the context of God or even
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God the Father. However, this tender even motherly love for his people is a great theme.
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It's a common theme in the Old Testament. First, when
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God reveals himself as merciful, the word mercy actually denotes the womb.
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They use the same, the word for mercy when God describes himself, uses the same three consonants for the same word as the womb.
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What's striking is that God's mercy toward us is tenderly caring and utterly compassionate as that of mother's love.
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And for many of us who have had tender, compassionate mothers by God's grace, we can tell the difference between how a mom responds to your owie compared to how your dad responds to your bruise.
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The mom may come down to your level and has to see it, kiss it, and then carry you to the couch have you lie down, pour you a glass of milk, start baking you some cookies.
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You just rest here for today. You show the same owie to your dad, he might hand you a band -aid and say, go play outside.
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You'll be fine. But the tenderly love of God in this text and also throughout the
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Old Testament, it's comparable to the motherly tenderly care.
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That's God's heart toward his people. He wants to gather them under his wings like a motherly hand would.
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No chick gets left behind. The hand would slow down for the chick.
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Now the figurative language of wings is also important. It's not unique here.
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After all, God nor Jesus has wings.
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It's figurative language. Hence the word as that a hand gathers.
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This figurative language actually is quite common in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 32, 11, the
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Lord spreads out his wings over his people like an eagle in deliverance. The psalmist in Psalm 36, 7 praises
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God's protection over his people. How precious is your loving kindness, O God, and the sons of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
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The shadow of your wings taking refuge under the wings represents
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God's protection and provision. You are covered from all sorts of harm.
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Here, Jesus is revealing nothing new.
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He's showing us this is the same God who longed to put his people under his wings, under his care, under his refuge.
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So when Jesus, God incarnate, comes to his own people, he also was more than willing to shield and shelter his people under his wings.
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In fact, that's what he wanted. That's what he longed for.
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That was his desire. That's what he came for.
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He didn't do it begrudgingly. I guess I have to do it because I promised you guys thousands of years ago.
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He did it because he wanted to. That's how he protects. However, the feeling was not mutual.
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His people was not willing to respond. His people were not willing to go under his wings.
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Now, what will result in rejecting God's compassionate offer of protection?
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Verse 35 pronounces judgment against the people of God who reject him. See, your house is left to you desolate.
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Here, the house is not referring to the temple as if the destruction of the temple in AD 70 fulfilled that.
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It's part of it, but it's more than that. But rather, the house represents
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Israel. Because Israel has rejected her Messiah, she will be exposed to ruins.
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Israel will be abandoned to be destroyed. And now the question is, is this forever?
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What about all the promises of blessing toward Israel all throughout the Old Testament and even the
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New? Jesus' final words to Jerusalem are not the pronouncement of judgment but a promise of a future blessing.
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And assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
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Lord. Although the judgment against rejecting the Messiah is
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God's abandonment of Israel, there is still hope for restoration.
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This hope for Israel's restoration is found in multiple places in the
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New Testament. Luke 21 -24 tells us that Jerusalem will be judged until the time of the
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Gentiles are over, are fulfilled. What this means is when
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Israel rejected Jesus, this allowed for the Gentiles to receive salvation through Jesus Christ.
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The blessing of salvation through the Jewish Messiah upon the rejection by His own people flowed out to the
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Gentiles as well, like us, people like us. And hence, Paul has no problem stating in Romans 11 -12, now if their transgression,
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Israel's transgression in rejecting Christ is richest for the world and their failure is richest for the
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Gentiles, what that means is they sinned by rejecting Jesus, but that meant the richest for the world, the rest of the world could finally be saved through God of Israel, through Jesus Christ.
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And their failure is richest for the Gentiles, specifically non -Jews benefit from their rejecting of Jesus Christ.
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How much more will their fullness be? Paul's longingly looking ahead for the blessing of Israel when they will finally, finally receive
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Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Well, if their rejection led to the blessing toward the rest of the world, how much more so when they receive
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Jesus Christ? Right, it's a rhetorical question, it's unfathomable what kind of blessing would result from the
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Jews receiving Jesus Christ. Hence, Jesus quotes
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Psalm 118 -26 here, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It is important, when the
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Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament, you have to check out the context of that Old Testament passage.
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And the reason is, Jesus and none of the gospel authors, none of the
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New Testament authors, quote the Old Testament out of context. We may quote the
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Old Testament out of context, or New Testament too. We do that because we're fallible human beings.
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Scripture is God's word. God does not quote his word out of context. Satan quotes
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God's word out of context all the time. But God's not Satan. God always quotes in the context of the
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Old Testament. So what does that mean? Well, the context of Psalm 118 is actually that of a joyful procession.
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The Messianic King enters Jerusalem with a procession of his people. And what this means is the judgment will end when
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Israel finally recognizes their Messiah Jesus and receives him as the one who comes in the name of the
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Lord. There will be a day in which Jerusalem will celebrate and worship
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Jesus Christ. Now, for those of you who have not trusted in Jesus, you too are under judgment like Israel, who rejected
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Jesus in his first coming. If you do not believe in Jesus, you have no personal relationship with God.
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You are separated from God. And how you respond to Jesus defines your relationship to God.
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If you do not believe in Jesus this morning, God stands as your enemy.
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There is enmity between you and God. And if you do not believe
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Jesus' work on the cross to save you from sin and his resurrection, you stand opposed to God.
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You stand under God's wrath. And you may believe life is still good.
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After all, there are a lot of non -Christians who are flourishing in this life. They're millionaires and billionaires.
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They're the elected officials. And you might think, well, what's the point?
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What's the incentive here? Well, the full judgment has not come yet.
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Right now, you're the defendant who is waiting to be sentenced. The sentence has not started.
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The full punishment has not yet begun. Now, what awaits those who reject
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Christ is the total separation from God and his pouring out of his wrath.
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One Old Testament professor describes what hell would be like. All the bloodbath and wars that you read throughout the
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Old Testament that even many Christians squirm at when reading, they are just a faint shadow of what's truly coming on the judgment day and on.
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All the massacres, all the wars, all the famines, all the plagues in the
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Old Testament that, frankly, in America, we just don't have that kind of category to even perceive.
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That's just a drop in the bucket of what hell would be like. The good news is that Jesus still longs to save.
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Just as Jesus longed to save Israel, he still longs to save you.
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God desires to deliver, and salvation is God's best business.
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It is not too late to trust him. It is not too late to respond to Christ in faith.
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If you believe that Jesus died for your sin and that he received
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God's wrath on your behalf, you can still find refuge under his protective wings from the ultimate judgment to come.
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And the reason is, the reason why you can go under his wings from the wrath of God that is to come is because he himself experienced the wrath of God for your sake.
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That's why you're protected under his wings. Someone else took it on for you so that you may be sheltered, so that you may be shielded under his compassionate wings.
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Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that we do have a choice to make because of Jesus Christ's death on the cross.
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Help us to respond in faith. Help us to not presume on your grace.
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Help us to shelter, find shelter under Jesus' wings.