Luke 13:31-35
Let us pray together. Our great
God, we give you thanks for everything you give. We bless you for the
opportunity to be part of the work of your great and mighty
kingdom. Lord, use these gifts that we
have given, your tithes, our offerings, but use our very lives
to make Christ known to the ends of the earth. Let it start in
our homes and extend through our neighborhoods and our places
of work and the places in the market where we conduct our business.
And may, Lord, you bless the work of missions and evangelism
around the world. We pray this in the name of Christ,
of the loving one, the great God of salvation, amen. You may
be seated. Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s gospel. Luke chapter 13, verses 31 to
35 is our passage for the day. We remember that Jesus is making
his way towards Jerusalem, where he will suffer and die at the
hands of the leaders of the state, but also the leaders of the church. He’s making his way there. And
today he is there is an attempt to stop his ministry or to redirect
it. But we’ll see that Jesus is resolute
towards healing, casting out demons and making his way to
Jerusalem, where outside the camp he will be made the perfect
sacrifice for our sins. Let’s give our attention now
to the reading of God’s great gospel. This is Luke chapter
13, beginning at verse 31. At that very hour, Some Pharisees came and said
to Jesus, get away from here for Herod wants to kill you. And Jesus said to them, go and
tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons. I perform cures today
and tomorrow and the third day I finished my course. Nevertheless,
I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following.
For it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the
city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent
to it. How often would I have gathered your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is forsaken.
And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Let us pray together. Lord, give us eyes that see,
give us ears that hear, and give us hearts that ponder and treasure
the words of the living God, the way of salvation. And most
of all, Lord, we pray that our hands and feet would be ready,
willing, and able to put into practice the words that we hear
this day. Words not from men, but from
you, the living God who speaks. And when you speak, that which
does not exist comes into being, whether it be the creation of
the world or new life and sinners who become saints. Lord, we put
our faith, our trust, our hope in you and ask for your help
and grace now. And we pray for it in Jesus name.
Amen. This Herod Antipas, who is the
character, the foe of our story today, is something of afternoon
television quality. He would be on Jerry Springer.
He would be on Mari Povich. He would be on Judge Judy. He
would be the type that you would see on one of these afternoon
televisions. Or you might find him in a Shakespearean
sort of character. He is the son of Herod the Great. Now, you remember Herod the Great
was the ruler for Rome over Israel when Jesus was born. And he did
not like the fact that there was to be born in the city of
David, a king of the Jews. And so you remember that he asked
the wise man, when you find Jesus, send word back where he is, for
I want to go worship him. But that was a big fat lie, wasn’t
it? He wanted to go kill Jesus. He
did not want competition. And so this Herod in our story
today is one of three of the other Herod’s boys. This Herod
at the birth of Jesus had three boys. One of them was Herod Antipas,
the Herod in our story today. He built a city on the Sea of
Galilee. And in order to build this city
or this palace or headquarters, he built this palace on the Sea
of Galilee. And in order to do it, he demolished
a Jewish cemetery. You can imagine in Jesus’ day,
he was not a popular man. And not only did he demolish
and defile a Jewish burial ground, he put up idols for various pagan
deities around the area where he was governor and ruler. Now,
this Herod also is the one who stole his brother Philip’s wife. You remember back in the story
of John the Baptist, John the Baptist gets thrown in prison
by Herod. Well, it was this Herod who’s
they say is looking to kill Jesus, who also put John the baptizer.
In prison, why did he do it? Well, because John the Baptist
was saying you shouldn’t have taken your brother’s wife. Bad
thing to do. Well, you know how the story goes. This here in
our story today, who stole his brother’s wife, his brother’s
wife, to whom he is now married. You see why it’s getting into
afternoon television, don’t you? It would make great ratings.
He has that wife’s daughter dance at a party. She pleases everyone.
And he says, in a rash, Val, I’ll give you whatever you want.
Maybe he was hoping she would ask for a Mustang convertible
or, you know, a shopping spree at the local mall. But instead,
what does she wish for? Well, the wife wishes for John
the Baptist head on a platter. And so that’s what she asked
for. And of course, it was delivered that evening at the party. So
this Herod, say the Pharisees in our passage today, wants to
kill Jesus. And so they come to Jesus, the
Pharisees, and say, Jesus, Herod Antipas wants you dead. You better
move on. You better scoot. You better
get out of here before He comes and with a sword your neck and
head are severed. And so that’s the the context
of this passage for the day. Now, why would they tell Jesus
this? I mean, you’ve got to be thinking in your head, you’re
good Bible thinkers. The Pharisees don’t like Jesus. Why would they
warn him? Why wouldn’t they say, we got
front row seats to this spectacle. We’re going to see Jesus die.
Well, for whatever reason, they do warn Jesus. Maybe they want
him to move on from their area. They’re tired of the healings
and the conversions. They’re tired of the repentance
and the faith and the trust in Jesus. They’re tired of people
being told over and over that the old Testament additions through
Phariseeism were not wise or biblical ways of living. They’re
tired of being told by Jesus that you’re wrong and the way
of the kingdom is right. Maybe they want to stop Jesus.
Maybe they want to unsettle Jesus. And I’ll tell you, I think the
only thing we can know for sure to understand this is this goes
all the way back to the book of Genesis, when God told Adam
and Eve and told Satan, there will be a perpetual battle between
the seed of Eve and the seed of the serpent. And there will
be this continual and perpetual battle between Jesus and Satan. Satan will continue to nip at
the heels of Jesus, but one day Jesus will crush the head of
the serpent. After our sermon is over, the
hymn that we’ll sing, Sing, Choirs of New Jerusalem, speaks of the
end of that great battle. When we look from an eternal
perspective and see that Jesus has won and Satan has lost, the
victory has been won. But this is one of the little
stops along the way where we see the heel nipping, as it were,
of Satan against Jesus. Jesus has not yet crushed the
serpent’s head. And we saw this with Herod’s
father. Remember, he wanted to kill Jesus.
He wanted to put out the life of the savior of the world who
had been born. in Bethlehem as king of the Jews. We see over
and over through the history of redemption, example after
example of where someone or wickedness wants to undo the gospel. But the people of God must persevere
ultimately in Christ Jesus. And so why do they tell Jesus
this? Why do they give the warning?
We don’t know, but it’s a stop along the way of this cosmic
battle between Satan and between the Lord Jesus. But one thing
we need to know for sure from this passage is this. Jesus won’t
be stopped. Jesus won’t be sidetracked. Jesus
knows the will of God for the work of redemption, and he sets
himself like a flint, Luke says elsewhere, for Jerusalem, and
he will not be stopped until redemption is accomplished. There’s
a couple of things we wanna pick up from this passage that I think
will encourage us in our kingdom living, in our gospel way. The
first thing that we want to consider is the timing of redemption. The timing of redemption, this
little section of Luke begins with these words, at that hour. At that hour, Jesus was making
his way to Jerusalem. At the hour when Jesus was ministering
in the countryside of Perea on his way to Jerusalem to suffer
and to die. At that hour, the Pharisees come
to him and say, go away, run for your life, hide, get out
of our territory. Whatever it is they mean, they
issue their warning, their command. We’ve experienced that a little
bit in our days, haven’t we? You can’t have services. Well,
if you have services, you can’t sing. We’re seeing the ongoing
battle between John MacArthur and the state of California,
and maybe somebody should warn them that John MacArthur is a
force to be reckoned with. He’s the reformed minister out
there, and I think he’s under a $1,000 a day, or maybe it’s
$1,000 per Sunday fine as long as he opens and holds worship.
The last couple of weeks, I think they’ve had three or four thousand
people in their house of worship. They believe Caesar has overstepped
and they want to worship God as the king of kings and the
Lord of lords expects his people to do so. But we hear warnings
like this, don’t we? From the Pharisees. We hear it
from our governors. You can’t have funeral services.
But somehow, isn’t it? Or is it my TV playing reruns?
I’ve watched a handful of funerals lately and they go on for days. and they’re well attended, but
we can only have 10 of our closest loved ones when we need to bury
our dead. And so we’re experiencing these
sorts of hostilities, the nipping at the heels by Satan on the
offspring of the Lord Jesus. And what does Jesus do? Does
he cower and say, okay, I guess I’ll get to Jerusalem a night
or two earlier. What does he do? Does he give in? He says,
no, you tell that fox, you tell that varmint, You tell that chicken
thief, speaks words of contempt. It may be the only place in the
scriptures Jesus does this, speaks with contempt towards someone.
Other places, he says, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. In
other places, he honors those in authority. But here he speaks
with great contempt. You tell that fox, you tell that
chicken thief, you tell that varmint, you tell that coward,
I’ve got work to do. And he tells of that work. that
timing of redemption in verse 32, look there, if you will.
He says, you go tell that Fox, behold, I cast out demons. I
perform cures today and tomorrow and the third day I finished
my course. Now some will say, Oh, that sounds
like, um, he’s going to go die. And on the third day rising in,
now this is just a, a, a, a colloquial or a local way of saying, I’ve
got to do work today and tomorrow and the next day. But after that,
I can, you know, go fishing with you or get to your job or those
sorts of things. It’s just a colloquial way of
saying, I got a few more days of stuff to do. Well, it goes
on in verse 33. Nevertheless, I must go on my
way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot
be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. We’re speaking
here of the timing of redemption. The Pharisees would love to move
up the death of Jesus. They can’t stand him. But Jesus
reminds us by his word here of the sovereign almighty and powerful
plan of almighty God, that the work of redemption is to be done
on God’s timetable, not on the timetable of men or enemies of
the saints. And so Jesus is unfazed. Now, how do we know this to be
the case? Well, you read the first couple of chapters of the
book of Acts. You read Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. You read
Peter’s account of the death and the suffering and the resurrection
of Jesus. And he says he speaks of the
timing of God, the sovereignty of God, the almighty power of
God in the work of redemption that took place at the cross
of Calvary. And friends, that’s a good reminder,
isn’t it, that we are still living. in the time of redemption. We
are still living under the sovereign hand of almighty God, and we
ought to be unfazed as we keep on preaching, as we keep on holding
worship, as we keep on making disciples, as we keep on evangelizing,
and as we keep on sending missionaries into the world. God and his sovereignty. will have the full number of
his elect gathered into his church through the proclamation of the
world and enemies cannot stop it. The state cannot stop it.
The rules of COVID-19 and whatever else cannot stop for the timing
of redemption must run its course. And that’s what Jesus is speaking
of here in our passage today. The timing of redemption, but
also he speaks secondly of the work of redemption. The work
of redemption we know Jesus has been busy doing. He’s been preaching
the kingdom, repent, believe. But also in our passage, he speaks
of casting out demons and pronouncing cures of diseases from people. And Jesus says further, I must
go on my way to Jerusalem. He can’t stop here. He can’t
just settle in this ministry and keep preaching the kingdom.
He’s got to go and offer himself as the once and for all sacrifice. The lamb slain before the foundation
of the world, even Jesus, must go, according to the prophecy
of God and the plan of the Almighty, to Jerusalem to die outside the
camp. He is the lamb who will be the
last one offered on the altar. He is the one who will put an
end to all sacrifices. He is the one who will enter
the Holy of Holies once and for all. And God will be pleased
with what he brings. And the curtain we remember when
Jesus dies is torn into and the separation between God and his
people is no longer. And so the work of redemption
for Jesus must continue, but it must be accomplished at Jerusalem. And so he won’t let that fox,
he won’t let the Pharisees, he won’t let anyone stop him from
the work of redemption. And it’s a good Encouragement
to us, isn’t it? We are the Church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We’ve been entrusted with things
that we must do until Jesus comes to continue the work of redemption.
Jesus has made his exit. He’s ascended to the right hand
of God the Father. He’s left us with the spirit. He’s given us the scripture and
he’s given us his marching orders. We’re to preach, we’re to make
disciples, we’re to evangelize, we’re to do the work of missions,
we’re to hold worship services, we’re to encourage the saints
to gather together. Our job is to make you heaven
ready. Our job is until Jesus comes
to do the work of redemption until the Lord Jesus comes. Our
job is to be stewards and heralds of the mystery of grace. and we can do no other task.
The church in America for sure has gotten off the ways of the
Jesus marching orders, but our job is to remember these simple
tasks and to keep on doing the work of redemption, not being
stopped and sidetracked and scared out of our task, but to continue
on our way. Like Jesus, we must say, we must
go on our way doing the work of redemption. There’s a third
thing this passage points out to us, not just the timing of
redemption, the work of redemption, but also the desire of redemption. In every service that I’ve ever
been a minister under in the churches where I’ve served, we’ve
always had a pastoral prayer. When I was first a pastor down
in the Charlotte area, had a lady come up to me after the service
and she said, she said, preacher, that was a real good pastoral
prayer, but it was kind of long and I got a casserole in the
oven. And she was serious about it. I had another fellow in the
church in Greensboro I served. He came up to me after the service.
He said, you know, the pastoral prayer is great, but it’s a little
long. And I said, don’t you worry. I’ll just leave your family out
next week, and that’ll cut us a little shorter on time. He
thought that was not such a good idea. So he didn’t mind the longer
prayers. But one of the things we pray for in our pastoral prayer,
we do pray for lots of things. And maybe it does take six, seven,
eight minutes. I’m not sure how long it takes. I’m sure some
of you know, don’t tell me because it’ll make me conscious. We’re
going to keep on doing it until Jesus comes. But one of the things
we pray for is that men and women and boys and girls will come
to faith in Jesus. That’s the desire of redemption,
isn’t it? That’s the desire that we all ought to have as Christians.
The desire that every one of us ought to have is that when
we give our tithes and our offerings, when we serve the church through
our gifts and abilities, when we come to worship and serve,
when we send a little money down to the missions agency or we
put a little money in the plate for the work of the church and
on and on. Our desire is not to have a shiny
building, although it’d be nice for this to be a little shined
up, wouldn’t it? Our desire is not to have a shiny building
or the slickest parking lot or the greatest this or that. Our
job is simply to be faithful so that people can have the opportunity
to come to Jesus. That ought to be our deepest
desire, not our organization, not our whatever the community
thinks about us. It ought to be said of us, our
desire is Jesus desire. Our desire is that men and women
and boys and girls will come to a place of redemption. You know, there’s a lot of wackiness
outside these walls. You watch the news for 10 minutes,
you’re depressed. You read the newspaper headlines,
they’re all the same. There’s civil unrest, there’s
political factions, there’s inequities in our culture. Whatever, however,
name it, whatever you think, however you interpret it, there’s
problems outside this door. But there’s really only one solution.
And the solution has to be there’s sin and there’s Jesus. And the desire of every one of
our hearts ought to be that some of these little sub-problems
do get taken care of. We don’t want to live in a world
where some people of a certain race or color or creed or whatever
don’t have the same opportunities of others. We don’t like that,
of course. But there’s a greater problem than that, isn’t there?
And I know that saying this is wildly unpopular. I know that
saying this is probably not politically correct. But it’s biblically
true, isn’t it? The worst problem that a man,
woman or child outside these doors has or inside these doors
is a sin problem. And they need Jesus. Otherwise
they will one day stand before the great throne of justice.
God will say, away from me, I never knew you. And so the greatest
concern that we can have is not in a literacy program or a, you
know, everybody who wants a job gets one. Those are wonderful
things to desire. But our greatest desire is that
men and women and boys and girls come to faith in Jesus. That’s
what Jesus desire was. That is the desire of redemption. And if you look at verse 34,
you see the heart of Jesus and it’s echoed From the book of
Ezekiel, which we read a few moments ago. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Jesus says, the city that kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to it. Can’t you just sense in Jesus
heart and mind? He knows what’s going to happen
in Jerusalem. He knows that Isaiah was killed there. He knows that
under Manasseh, he killed all these prophets of God. He knows
that under the evil regime of many kings of Israel, prophets
go to Jerusalem to do one thing, and it’s not to preach. It’s
to die. And he knows that he will be
the last great prophet who goes to that city and who dies. And
so you see in verse 34, his heart, he says, how often I would have
gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under
her wings. And you would not behold your
house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not
see me until you say, blessed is he who comes In the name of
the Lord, Jesus desire. Our desire is that men and women
and boys and girls who are living in evil days with evil hearts
and who are under the wrath and curse of God will come to their
senses and see their need of salvation, see Jesus as the way
of salvation and put their faith and their hope and their trust
in him. As we sang a few moments ago,
they’ll come to the waters. Those who are thirsty, they will
no longer live under the law’s condemnation, but under the blessing
of Jesus. Now, Jesus and his desire for
redemption here, on the one hand, desires their redemption, but
he’s speaking words of judgment. You won’t see me again until
you hear the words, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord. He’s speaking of a time when it will be too late. And
he said that many times in our recent studies of Luke, there
is a time There’s a time coming when the free offer of the gospel
is closed. And judgment is at hand, and
Jesus is saying he’s lamenting here, Jerusalem, you’ve had it
all, you’ve had the law, the prophets, the covenants, you’ve
got Abraham as your father and Isaac and Jacob as your patriarchs.
You’ve got Moses, the lawgiver. You’ve had these special dispensations
of my grace and mercy. And yet your house is desolate.
And sadly, the next time you’re gonna see me is when the people
sing, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now,
some people say, oh, that’s an allusion to his triumphal entry. No, it’s bigger than that because
of its connection to the Psalms. It’s a eschatological allusion. It’s an allusion to the end times,
the second coming and judgment of God. You’ll see me again,
but you’re not gonna like to see me. Because this will be
the time of your judgment when your house is desolate. And so,
dear friends, we look at the timing of redemption, the work
of redemption, the desire of redemption. And our challenge
as a church is to keep preaching until Jesus comes, keep proclaiming
and doing the work of redemption until Jesus comes. But there’s
a challenge for each and every one of you challenged to you
and you and you individually. You must come to a place where
you recognize God is the sovereign of the universe, where you recognize
his law is perfect and where you recognize that what he says
about you is true, that in Adam you were born dead and sins and
trespasses and that from that sin nature you have. You have
sinned your entire life and that someday if unchecked, if not.
met with the mercy and grace of Christ, you will face the
judgment of God and he will say away with you. He will put you
out of his kingdom. He will put you out of his blessing.
He will put you in everlasting torment and judgment. But the
call of the gospel, the passion of Jesus, the passion of this
church, this pulpit and each and every one of your hearts,
I do believe is this, that every man, woman and child would hear
the gospel and believe that Jesus is the way of salvation and acknowledge
their own sinfulness and step up to the demands that God has
issued and come to a place of repentance and faith and a newness
of life where your desire is to do what God loves and your
heart beats with the will of Almighty God. That is the hope
of Jesus and the desire of redemption. And I pray that you won’t leave
this place today without thinking of it seriously. You know, Jesus
is speaking here to church people. He’s speaking right to the Pharisees.
They’re church people, aren’t they? They know the rules. They
keep them. They dress right. Their ties are just straight.
They sit in their pew in the synagogue. They drop their money
in the offering plate. They do everything that we do
except one thing. They don’t trust in Jesus. Friends,
that’s not a good place to be. There’s nothing your hands can
do to merit the salvation of Christ. but there’s something
the hands of Jesus have done. They were stretched out on the
cross for your sins and mine. And so come to him by faith and
receive him and rest in him alone for salvation. For the work of
redemption is his greatest joy. Let’s look to God in prayer. Lord, we have to admit that our
hearts can be hard like the Pharisees. We want rules kept and church
to be just like we want it. And what a good reminder It is
for us today that church is really, it’s really saved people singing
about their redemption because they’ve trusted in you and they
desire to go into the world and to tell others about this great
gospel of grace. Lord, let us not leave this place
today without thinking of our redemption and wondering at your
love or thinking about where we are and maybe we’re apart
from Christ. We’ve heard the challenge and
need to come to faith. Lord, bless us mightily in our
place in life today. Give us faith, give us stronger
faith, give us joy in our salvation, but also a desire to speak to
the nations. Hear us and help us, we pray
in Christ’s name, amen.