Dullsville- A City Ignorant of Her God

If you prefer in your bulletin,
we find ourselves once again in chapter 19. When I was a little guy, we used
to pile ourselves in our family camper and head up to the mountains.
We had a number of favorite spots. One of our favorite times was
actually coming home and driving down the mountain road and beginning
with the anticipation of looking out our camper window there and
beginning to get a glimpse first, just an initial glimpse of the
lights of the city of Denver. And then as you finally rounded
that corner on I-70, coming down the mountain there, Denver comes
into full view. And there is a similar situation
here on the road to Jerusalem that Christ experienced those
that were with him in this throng that is heading to Jerusalem,
this triumphal entry still in the midst of this impromptu worship
service. And as they climb Mount Olives,
the Mount of Olives or Olivet. There is this point in the road,
historians note, that as you round the corner, the city of
Jerusalem would have come into full view. And if you can imagine
a city at dusk, it is my favorite time of day. I’ve lived in places
where Dallas and Phoenix, where That time of the evening just
seems to last for several hours here in Colorado. It’s pretty
short lived. It’s still my favorite time. But if you can imagine
there in the midst of this impromptu worship service, Christ proceeding
on the road to Jerusalem and there nearing dusk, coming around
the corner and suddenly coming face to face with this strikingly
beautiful city. It was held to be one of the
most beautiful cities in all the world at the time. The desert
in the background and the beautiful structures complete with pools
of water. The lights now coming on in the
evening and you can imagine as the city was quieting down the
beautiful sight that it must have been. Josephus, the great historian,
I have a number of quotes of his today. I don’t know, given
the time that we’ll be able to give them all proper treatment. But Josephus points out just
the striking beauty of some of the key features of Jerusalem
in that day, one of which was the temple itself. He said, the
outward face of the temple in its front lacked nothing that
was likely to surprise either men’s minds or their eyes. It
was covered all over in plates of gold of great weight. And
at the first rising of the sun, it reflected back a fiery splendor
and it made those who forced themselves to look upon it, turn
their eyes away just as they would have done in the sun’s
own rays. But this temple appeared to strangers
when they were at a distance like a mountain covered with
snow. For as those parts of it that
were not covered with gold were exceedingly white, it was made
all of marble on its top, it had spikes with sharp points
to prevent any pollution by birds of its stone. Some of them were
forty five cubits in length, five feet in height or five in
height, six in breadth. Before this temple stood the
altar 15 cubits high of equal, both in length and breadth, each
of which dimension was 50 cubits. That must have been the centerpiece
of the city, this gold and white, brightly colored building. At the moment, Christ comes around
that corner. Certainly that must have been.
At the forefront of what he saw. This beautiful city, this city
of God, as it came to be known in many circles. Christ begins
to look on this city with saddened eyes. Begins to look on the grandeur
of the city and and it must have been mixed emotions for him to
look on the beauty of the city and yet to know its eventual
end. The beautiful houses, the structures,
the towers that were in it, all the while knowing the calamities
that were going to become or that were coming upon it shortly. Another historian describes that
walk that night. When he says, as the procession
advanced, the road descends to a slight decline. At the glimpse
of the city again, withdrawn behind this intervening ridge
of olive, essentially what you get is this constant weaving
in and around through trees and mountains. You get glimpses of
the city now and then, and then suddenly it opens to a full view. A few moments and the path mounts
again. It climbs a rugged ascent. It
reaches the ledge of smooth rock. And in an instance, the whole
city bursts into view. The temple tower rose, the temple
courts, the magnificent city with its background long since
vanished away of gardens and suburbs on the western plateau
behind. In other words, he sees this
city sitting on a hill. At one time, Jerusalem was spoken
of as the joy of the whole earth. Listen to the Psalms or the biblical
account of Jerusalem. Psalm 48, 2 says, beautiful in
elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion and the far
north, the city of the great king. This was God’s city. This was God’s town, if you will. Later on in that same Psalm,
verses 12 to 14, walk about in Zion and go around her, count
her towers, consider her ramparts, go through her places that you
may tell it to the next generation. For such is God. Our God is forever
and ever. He will guide us until death.
With great confidence, the city had at one time in their God.
Psalm 137. May my tongue cling to the roof
of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem
above my chief joy.” And as the city lies there before Christ’s
view, the Master, our Lord, prophesies against this sharp contrast of
this peaceful, beautiful little city. The contrast, essentially,
of judgment. Jerusalem is peaceful and beautiful.
But on the other hand, Christ sees it in a smoldering, hideous
ruin with thousands and thousands of dead. By turning the corner
and coming face to face with Jerusalem, even all of its beauty,
Jesus couldn’t ignore and wouldn’t ignore the reality. The judgment,
in a sense, had already come upon the city. It would be years,
40 years specifically before the Judgment was actually realized,
but in a sense, the die is already cast. What is the motivating cause
of all this? If you look down to the end of
the passage, we’ll start at the end first and work our way back
to the beginning momentarily. The end of the passage says that
it was all because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. This had been the flourishing
city of God. This had been the city that belonged
to the nation. The seat of the ancient kings
of Judah, the city of the great God, the place of divine worship
where all the tribes of Israel would come up to worship time
after time to serve the Lord and to honor their God. And yet, a city that had despised
The messenger messengers and the messages of God in the prophets
and a time city that time after time had mocked and misused and
abused and killed the prophets. It was to this city. To this
city that Christ looked down, Christ knew the character of
the inhabitants of Jerusalem. These were those who he found
to be cruel. He had known it for centuries.
He had found to be self-righteous, stubborn. They had an obstinate
prejudice, one said, against the truth, as we have well seen
in the Gospels. Jesus knew that exactly what
they were going to do with him in just a matter of days, they
were going to bring about this unjust judgment, deliver him
to the Gentiles. He was going to go through almost
unprecedented sufferings, crucified. All these things were in Christ’s
eyes. He looked out on this peaceful, beautiful little place. This
Jerusalem, which should have known Christ above all others
to which Christ came, they should have recognized Christ, but they
were dull to the things of God. They were blind to what God had
provided for them and they were insensitive to the Messiah. Totally
insensitive. Luke records here that he calls
it a visitation. It’s a day of opportunity. Visitation was there were usually
two equal and opposite things equated with a visitation. It
was either a time of blessing or punishment. The visitation
that they received was one of mercy. It was a precious time. It was a time of intimacy and
longing and a time of great hope. Remember how Luke’s Gospel opened
Luke 168. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited us and accomplished redemption for his people. Zacharias
knew what God had provided. Zacharias rejoiced. He rejoiced
more for Christ than he did even for his own son. because he knew
his son was merely the forerunner to the Messiah. Luke 1.78 says
it again, because of the tender mercy of our God with which the
sunrise from on high will visit us. They knew, these early saints
of God knew, that in Christ the Messiah was a visitation, a divine
visitation. And shouldn’t Jerusalem have
grasped it? I mean, they had the Word. They
had the teachers. They had the history. They were
supposed to be in eager anticipation of the Messiah. Here one records,
the mightiest miracles that man has ever seen were worked in
her and around her. The most wonderful preaching
that ear has ever heard was preached within her walls. The days of
our Lord’s ministry were the days of clearest calls to repentance
and faith that any city has ever received. There were calls so
marked, so special, unlike any previous calls Jerusalem had
ever received, that it seemed impossible that they should be
disregarded. But they were. And that’s why
I called the city Dullesville. It was a city that was dull and
ignorant. to their God. Dull and ignorant
to all that God had provided. If you would, look at these three
brief verses here, beginning in verse 41, where Luke records,
when he had approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over
it, saying, if you had known in this day, even you, the things
which make for peace, But now they have been hidden from your
eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will
throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hand
you in on every side. And they will level you to the
ground, you and your children with you. And they will not leave
you leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize
the time of your visitation. I want to just briefly this morning
look at this city called Jerusalem, Dollsville, a city ignorant of
her God. And I want to look at three responses
to her rejection of Christ. Three responses that really are
universal for any who reject Christ, whether it be a city
or a nation or even an individual. God’s response is the same in
each and every situation. First of all, Jerusalem’s rejection
of Christ brought about heartbreak. Brought about heartbreak. Look
at verse forty forty one. When he approached Jerusalem,
he saw the city and wept over it. Christ wept in his passionate
pity for these people. That they were going to have
to pay such a heavy penalty, Jesus didn’t absolve them of
the guilt. Jesus didn’t wish the penalty
would go away. But he had pity on them that
they were going to reap the judgment that they had come to deserve.
Knowing all that he knew of these people and all of the cruelties
that even yet they were going to bring about on him, he still
had compassion on them. It was the sight of the city
and all that might have been. Oh, that the Jews had received
him. That’s why his heart broke. This
word, it’s an interesting word, it’s stronger than other words
that basically mean the same thing to weep. There’s another
word at another occasion where Christ wept, one of the few ever
recorded in Scripture. And it’s interesting that this
weeping does point to Christ’s humanity. But you get those that
say that Christ wept only in his humanity. When we know really
God has compassion for the wicked, God takes no pleasure in the
death of the wicked. It is a heartbreaking thing to
God as well, that his creation should spurn his love and his
fellowship and his mercy. On this other occasion, when
Christ wept, Oh, it is the shortest verse in the Bible. John chapter
11. Jesus had been summoned to his
friend Lazarus by Mary and Martha. He had died. Jesus knows he had
died when Jesus saw her weeping, the Jews who came with her also
weeping. He was deeply moved in spirit
and troubled. It wasn’t that he was weeping
for Lazarus. Jesus wasn’t surprised that he
raised Lazarus moments later. Jesus wasn’t caught off guard.
What broke his heart was the pain that these people felt,
the pain that death brings. Even the passage we just read,
Trey, my brother, read earlier in our Scripture reading there
in 1 Thessalonians 4, we don’t weep or we don’t mourn as those
who have no hope. But Paul didn’t say that it’s
a sin to mourn. He didn’t say we don’t mourn. It is heartbreaking. It is sad. And that’s what Jesus
had compassion with here. And it says in verse thirty four,
he said, where he laid him and they said to him, Lord, come
and see. And verse thirty five, Jesus wept. Jesus, for the compassion
of the human condition, this constant dealing with death that
had been brought about. But this word, the word in Luke’s
passage here is different than that. The word in the Gospel
of John speaks of a very quiet cry, if you will. But the word
here in Luke’s passage talks about a wailing and a sobbing. Get the fact that, you know,
a tear gently rolled down Jesus’ cheek as he saw Jerusalem. In
fact, Matthew’s Gospel records on another occasion later in
the week where he says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. This is something
that tore at his heart. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit
to be in that scene and to hear Jesus gasp for a breath in the
midst of his statements. The widow of Nain. when she came
to Christ. She wept so loudly that it says,
the Lord’s sorrow felt compassion for her and said to her, do not
weep. Luke 38, the woman coming and
begin wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair and her tears. And in
that sense, this public demonstration of sorrow That’s the gist of
this word. Luke 52, there’s another instance.
They were all weeping and lamenting for her. But He said, stop weeping.
She has not died, but is asleep. This was a loud, often verbose,
demonstrative kinds of weeping. It’s very characteristic of the
East. At the death of Lazarus, the
tears flowed the love of his friend, the intensity of that
friendship and the pity of the human condition. But here it’s
from the intense love for God’s people, Israel. And Christ’s
compassion on them. These weren’t silent tears like
the tears at Lazarus’s grave. These were tears of ultimate
pity, ultimate compassion. There’s another. There’s another
response to the rejection of Christ. Not only was it heartbreaking,
and heartbreaking to God Himself, to see His own creation go this
way, to see His own people. Remember in John’s Gospel, He
came to His own and His own received Him not. Heartbreaking. But not only was
it heartbreaking, Jerusalem’s rejection of Christ brought a
hardening It brought a hardening. Look at verse 40, 41 and 42,
when he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over
it, saying, If you had known this day, even you, the things
which make for peace. But now they’ve been hidden from
your eyes. You know, the verses, some of
these are verses we We memorize early on. Seek the Lord while
He may be found, Isaiah 55. Call upon the Lord while He is
near. They had had a day of visitation. They had had a time so near to
Christ, nearer than any city in history. 2 Corinthians 6,
2, at the acceptable time, I listened to you on the day of salvation.
I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Now is the
day of salvation. And Jerusalem had had their day.
And they had dulled their hearts. They had dulled their hearts
to the provision of God. Look at this sentence, if you
would. The first sentence of Christ’s response. If you had
known this day, even you, the things which make for peace.
And it hits with a thud. Jesus doesn’t finish His words.
Perhaps it’s here where He sobbed out loud. If you had only known. And often in the midst of emotion,
we start sentences that we don’t finish, don’t we? If you don’t
knock it off, right parents? That’s exactly it. It’s the expression
essentially of a wish. Oh, that you had known. Words
imply that there had been many, many opportunities that Jerusalem
had and that they had fallen deaf ears. Many, multiple, ample
opportunities. And this is the last. This is
the last. The sentence does continue. The
words of Christ recorded continue when he’s now. Here were all
these ample opportunities. And here is this longing, say,
desiring that they had have known and implemented the mercy of
God that was extended towards them. You know what? It’s no
different than for you and I or for the rest of the society into
which we’ve been born. There are countless out there
in this city and Windsor and Fort Collins and Greeley and
all the other surrounding areas. They are privy to the grace of
God and they reject it time and again. J.C. Ryle said it this way, all
ignorance is not acceptable. Whenever you share the gospel,
we talked about this last week, you know, share the gospel and
you talk to somebody and they say, well, what about the, you know,
the heathen in Africa who’s never heard? That’s true. To a degree,
that’s true. God will find a way to bring
the heathen in the gospel. That all ignorance is not excusable.
And when men might know the truth, but refuse to know it, their
guilt is very grim in the sight of God. There is a degree of
knowledge for which all are responsible. And if from indolence or for
prejudice, we do not attain that knowledge, the lack of it will
ruin our souls. I mean, to God’s word, say it
the same way with increasing knowledge comes increasing responsibility. To him whom much is given, much
is required.” Right? And Jerusalem had been given
a great deal. And there are those around you
that have been given an equally great deal. I mean, Jerusalem
didn’t have the fullness of Scripture in written form yet. Do you know
that you can study today? You can walk up and hand to them
the entire revelation of God? Jerusalem didn’t have that. They
had Christ in the flesh, God incarnate dwelling in their midst.
They had ample opportunity. But I would tell you that your
neighbor, the one who has heard of Christ and continues to reject
Him, he has the same kind of opportunity. But it was actually the reverse. And Jesus says, but now. Now, it’s a difficult turn. Jesus says, but now, these things, these precious
things are from your eyes. They’ve been hidden at once by
the divine decree. That part of it, from a human
perspective, has always just baffled me. You know what it
reminds me of? It reminds me of the parable
of the soils. In one of the most frequently
quoted verses from Isaiah, in all of the New Testament, I think
it’s quote times. Remember the bandit and his apostles ask about
it. Why are you talking in parables?
Why not just talk talking in parables? Why not just tell us
plainly these things? Quotes. Isaiah chapter 6, verse
66. In the case, their prophecy of
Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, you will keep on hearing
but will not understand. You will keep on seeing but will
not perceive. For the heart of this people
become dull with their ears, they scarcely hear. They have
closed their eyes lest they should see with their eyes and with
their ears and understand with their heart and return and I
should heal them. Essentially, what was going on
even at that early moment of Christ’s ministry, this looks
back to the very beginning of it, the parable of the soils. And Jesus says there is already
now a hardening of their hearts. And to the degree with which
we mistreat truth as it is given to us, our own hearts may be
hardened. not a saved man, not a Christian
man, but one who tastes the gospel, one who is brought to church,
one who perhaps is handed a Bible. He is given this truth and the
degree to which he responds to that truth determines what additional
truth he’s going to be privy to. A man who gives himself up
to some kind of deception, He doesn’t know what kind of downward
spiral he’s just placed himself on, does he? It’s quoted in the Bible of John
as well. Jesus has said, Lord, or pardon me, this was to fill
the word of Isaiah, the prophet, which spoke, Lord, who is believed
to report to whom the arm of the Lord been revealed. For this
reason, they could not believe. For Isaiah said again, he has
blinded their eyes. This is an act of God now. This
is an act of God that, to use the old Puritan term, reprobates
them, gives them over to their own heart because of their lack
of willingness to deal rightly with truth. In these words, Jesus
speaks about his sincere longing that even now at the eleventh
hour, He’s just days away from the cross. The Jewish people
would would yet accept the redemption that was offered in the Messiah,
in Him. And even in mid-sentence, he
says, but alas, almost. But now. He recognizes already
that it’s too late. The persistence in their wickedness
and their unbelief has blinded them to their opportunities. Jerusalem’s rejection of Christ
brought about a heartbreak. And it brought about a hardening.
And this was a real hardening. This was not something that they
could work through and overcome and create second chances. This
was a being given over to their own devices, to their own evil
minds. But I said there were three responses
to the rejection of Christ, not only a heartbreak and a hardening. And I don’t want to cheapen this
word. There was a Holocaust. I don’t mean to take away from
what happened there in World War II and all
the evils that Hitler brought about on the Jews. But this was
every bit. In fact, in many ways, this was
even worse. Worse of a Holocaust. An entire
city was wiped out and everybody in it. And this is what Jesus
foresees. The judgment of God coming upon
them. Look at verse 43. The days will
come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against
you and they will surround you and hand you in on every side.
They will level you to the ground and your children with you in
you, one stone upon another, because you did not recognize
the time of your visitation. That’s the city that Christ looked
out on. Not a glittering little jewel in the midst of the desert
with its gentle pools of water and gathering quiet little families
around the dinner table that Christ rounded the hill and saw
at His feet that night. That’s not the same city. This
judgment, we know, was literally fulfilled 40 years later when
the Romans attacked them. Emperor Titus surrounded the
city. First, he created this wooden,
what’s called a palisade, mounds of dirt and interspersed with
these little wooden towers. And it says that the Jews burnt
them on fire. You know, what really set the
thing off was Titus’s soldiers near him was pierced with a small
arrow. They called a dart. It just served
to irritate Titus all the more. And so he threw up a rock fortress
around the city of Jerusalem, a foundation, if you will. He
built it out and they built it in four days and it was four
miles long and it was so rigid. What they did was essentially
starve out the city of Jerusalem. Anybody who tried to escape was
crucified. Let me give you just a brief
reading of Josephus’s account. Josephus records Jewish horse
when the affairs within the city were in this posture, tight on
the city on the city outside with some chosen horsemen and
looked about for a proper place where he might make an impression
upon the walls. He was looking to break in. But as he was in
doubt where he could possibly make an attack. He thereupon
said it said it thought it best to make his assault upon the
monument of John, the high priest, for there was the first fortification
was lower. The second was not not to join
it. The builders neglected to build the wall strong with the
new city was. And essentially what you have here is a human
version of exegesis laid out. You know what they’re going to
do, they’re going to build a barricade against you. They’re going to
surround you and they’re going to hand you in on every side
and they’re going to going to level you to the to the ground. It’s exactly what happened. One
of his friends, whose name was Nicanor, was wounded with a dart
on his left shoulder, and as he approached together with Josephus,
I mean, it only served to inflame Titus. Titus is there standing
to get the plea to open the gates and to bring about a treaty.
He didn’t go there to wipe out the city. But in their stubbornness,
they irritated him. And once Caesar knew their vehemence,
that they would not even bear to be approached, to persuade
them to their own preservation. This was a blessing for them.
He said, that’s it. And they threw up this rock and
waited them out. And one by one, they began to die. Josephus records
later, so that all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews,
together with their freedom of going out of the city. Then the
famine widened its progress, devoured the people by whole
houses and families. Upper rooms were full of women
and children that were dying. All swelled with the famine,
fell down, dying. Those that were sick themselves
were not able to do it. Those that were hearty and well
were afraid of doing it because of the great multitude of the
bodies. This is what Christ looked out and saw. And you know what? Where is our view of the end? Because it will be so far worse. It will be so worse than what
Jerusalem experienced. We look around on our pretty
little city of Fort Collins. It is a pretty, judge what, one
of the top ten places in America to live? Can you imagine it being
utterly obliterated and wiped off the map? What about San Francisco? Beautiful
city. That bridge, those buildings. Where is our compassion? Where’s
our compassion for those that are going to go right along with
these cities, right along with these little beautiful little
towns? Josephus continues. And he said,
thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day,
and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities
they were under, even upon themselves after it preyed upon the people.
Indeed, the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps upon one another
was a horrible sight, produced a pestilential stench, which
was a hindrance to all that would make sallies about the city. The stench became worse. They were afraid to even go in
the city. It was so bad. And because of that, it says
that when they went in, they broke down the walls, trying
to leave no stone upon another. An exact fulfillment of Christ’s
words. The refusal of those three years
to believe in Him because Israel gradually had drifted from God
time and time again. And each time they came back,
it was a little less close. And each time they drifted, it
was a little further away. How much further could they ever
drift to not recognize their own Messiah? We live in just such a day, people.
We live in just such a day. The heartbreaking response of
the people that we reach out to, it’s no less heartbreaking
to Christ than in this day. The hardening is no less severe.
You know that there have been people, you know them. See their
faces. You remember the conversations.
You know there have been people with whom you’ve been engaged
in gospel kinds of conversations since talking about Christ. And
you know you’ve been right there. And then they put it off. They
put it off to the point where now when you bring things up,
there is no discussion to be had. God has hardened their hearts. And the sad thing for them And
for the rest of the world in which we live, there is a holocaust
coming that would make anything that the earth has ever experienced
seem like nothing. Afternoon party gone bad. In Jesus Christ, God has proved
once and for all that He was the God of love. It was the most
loving act God has ever done in sending His Son. But He’s
also a righteous God. And He’s an Almighty God. And
He’s a God that is not mocked. Or any person who rejects the
Lord Jesus Christ, the next visit he receives from God will be
one of judgment. And we must have hearts of compassion. We must allow the Lord to break
our hearts and to see people for what they are and to see
what they can’t see. But God used this to motivate
us to reach out to those. Last week, I mentioned the life
or the you’re invited. All I would do again is invite you to take a stack of
them, fold them and be prepared to hand them out to the to the
needy ones who check out your groceries that so often we just
overlook is that they’re not even human. To the guy that changes
your oil. The guy that waits on your table.
Just hand them to them. And we said last week, what you’re
inviting them to is not Providence Bible Church. You’re inviting
them to eternity with Christ. You’re inviting them to peace
with God. You’re inviting them to the worship
of a holy God. If they happen to come here,
so be it. Take those. Take them to hurting people.
Let’s pray. They’re kind in our merciful
God. We know that You are our sovereign and that our eyes are
blinded if you not mercifully open them for us. Lord God, we
thank You and praise You for joy. And Lord, we don’t want
to become complacent or arrogant in that. We didn’t deserve it. Grant us the grace to take Christ
And the gospel. To this law. That they may escape
this cost that is coming up in a thing upon them unless they
turn. Lord, grant us the grace to proclaim Christ in all that
we do. In Jesus name. Amen.