The Gospel of Luke 19:41-48 – Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Luke 19:41-48 · Vern Peterman · Jun 26, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 75
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926535397017

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We will be taking a look here at Luke 19, 40 through 48, 41 through 48. And this is the last part of the triumphal entry. Last week we had this kind of aerial view, pretending you're a flying donkey. We won't overdo that here this morning, but it would be good just to kind of get a look at where Jesus proceeded from. Here is Old City Jerusalem there in the foreground, and this is looking east you can see the Dead Sea off in the distance there and Then the Temple Mount now having the Dome of the Rock, but during Jesus time that was where the Jewish Temple was located The Mount of Olives across from the Kidron Valley there is next to the east. And then right behind that is Bethany. That is where Jesus would have started on the so-called triumphal entry. And so that's where they would have picked up the donkey there at Bethphage.

So, and we're going to find that the entry into Jerusalem and the temple was not all that triumphal. As a matter of fact, we're looking at what's actually a rather difficult part of it, and it's the part where Jesus crests the hill. We're going to find that Jesus will weep audibly with great loud sobs and tell of a massive tragedy that is about to take place in Jerusalem. Then we'll enter the temple and clear it of its commerce and then begin after that to teach.

So, let's look at Luke 19, 41 and 42. And I've done a little bit different pattern here, and so I included the verse and, as we'll see, the Wiest translation, because I think Kenneth Wiest brought out some very important meaning of the words and verb tenses and things of that sort. So Luke 19, 41 and 42, first in the New American Standard Version.

So when he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known in this day even now the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes. Here is what the Weiss translation carries it across as. And as he came near, having caught sight of the city, he burst into tears, weeping audibly over it, saying, If you had known in this day, even you, the things tending toward your peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes." What we see in this is Christ's great compassion. And I think the Weiss translation brings this out.

It wasn't that he just started weeping, you know, dripping a little bit in the eyes. He wept out loud audibly. I'm sure people who are seeing this, what we call the triumphal entry, were perhaps even puzzled to have him suddenly, as Jerusalem breaks into view, to have him suddenly just bursting into tears and weeping out loud, not just a little dripping of the eyes, but crying out. crying out.

And so here would be a scene. This is what it would look like with him coming over. There would be the temple. Lots of gold visible in the temple, even from the distance. There would always be a column of smoke. It was required by the law of Moses that there be constant fire. The fire must continuously go on. He would be cresting the hill and looking towards this eastern gate.

So this perspective you see about here is about what Christ would have seen. It also would have been a springtime view, so what you see in the way of vegetation and greenness, that would also be fairly genuine here. There we go. So, though the crowd's welcome had even seemed glorious along the way, Jesus wept as Jerusalem came into view. And again, a loud, audible weeping, since He knew its spiritual state and destiny in the time to come.

Imagine, you know, we in our human perspective, we see what we see. We look at things and evaluate them for what they are, what they appear to be to us. We look at people, and we see their exterior, and we try to read into, you know, how's this person doing, and we look at things like expressions of the face and body language and things like that. But imagine, here's Christ's perspective.

He sees what's going to happen when He looks at the city. He sees what's going to happen. He looks at people and sees in their hearts Not just gets some sort of insight into their hearts. He is one, the Bible says, who searches the hearts. He knows hearts deeply.

And so as he sees Jerusalem here, he sees a massive tragedy that is going to happen because he has been rejected as the Jew's Messiah. He says, if you had known, the Jews in great part didn't understand or perceive that Jesus the Messiah was among them. They didn't recognize that the kingdom had been offered to them. They rejected him as the Messiah, the offering they were blind to, in great part. Very few responded favorably. Now the things that make for peace are understanding and perceiving, that Jesus was and is the Messiah who was offering the kingdom and peace will only come through Him.

Here's Isaiah 2-7. This gives us the things which make for peace. So it says, The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation. And by the way, when we see in the Bible, the nation or the people, That's referring to the people of Israel, specifically. If you see the nations or the peoples, that's the non-Jews, the Gentiles, right? You shall multiply the nation of Israel.

You shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence, as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. for every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning fuel or for fire." Now this is looking ahead at the millennial kingdom, at the kingdom in which Christ will reign, right?

And the next one is one often quoted at Christmastime For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."

Let me make a comment about Eternal Father. People sometimes ask, wait a minute, I thought this was the son. Why is he called the Eternal Father? I would carry that across as he is the father or the source of the ages of eternity. So that's the explanation for there.

Then it says, there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. He is the prince of peace. Peace comes only through him. Israel will have no peace until Christ comes again. People expect, oh, if I just negotiate this and I just negotiate that, not happening. Without Jesus, it will not happen. on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish it." Will it be human beings who pull this off? No. It's the Lord who will pull this off. He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Source of Peace. There will be no end to peace as He reigns. And the Lord is going to pull it off. It won't be because human beings pull it off. We can't.

So then it says, hidden from your eyes, with Pharaoh back in the book of Exodus, we observe as we look through the words hardened. Pharaoh's heart, and after Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardened Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh had hardened his own. See that? God hardened Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart several times.

The gospel of the kingdom had been presented to the leaders of the Jews, except for a few. They had been blind to the gospel of the kingdom. They had been blind, so he says, okay, now it's going to be hidden. Hidden by God, because you would not look at it. You would not see it. God Himself has hidden the understanding from them. You might say, well, wait a minute, what sense does that make?

This goes along with and is consistent with the Romans 1, 18-32, God gave them over. Is that what you want? Is that what you really insist on? Then God will give you over to that. Here's Luke 19, 43-44 in the New American Standard, For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side. and they will level you to the ground and your children within you and they will not leave you in one stone in you rather one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation and here it is in the Weiss translation for there shall come days of such a character upon you when your enemies shall both throw up a rampart before you and encircle you and exert pressure on you from every side and they shall raise your city to the ground both you and your children in you, and shall not leave stone upon stone in you, because you did not recognize the strategic, epical season of God's gracious overseeing care and offer of help." That's rather intense. And here is a passage we'll be getting to in some time ahead here, Luke 21, 5 and 6. This is the New American Standard version. It's also in Matthew 24, 2 and Mark 13, 2.

And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, he said, as for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be one stone upon another which will not be torn down. So here is the rest of the story.

The Old Testament says that the Jews would have God do the fighting for them. This would be an example as we saw in that passage from Isaiah with Gideon and the battle with the Midianites there. God would do the fighting for them. Their enemies would be afraid of them and that they would rule over their enemies if they would do what? Obey. It's that simple, right? Obey, then God will take care of the rest.

Many Jews got this backwards, insisting on fighting, even initiating the resistance and the battle to overthrow the enemies. So the Zealots and the Sicarii, you could translate that as Jewish terrorists, took up arms to gain their freedom. So here is a timeline of what actually took place that Jesus had prophesied. You see, this goes from 60 A.D. to 75 or so A.D. And first is that Jesus' half-brother James was martyred in 62 A.D. So here's the sequence there.

He was pushed off the pinnacle or corner of the temple off into the ground below. It didn't kill him, so they did him in with a club. The temple was completed in 63 after starting in 20 BC. The temple was completed in 63 AD and they laid off 18,000 people and as you could guess there were riots as they quit the temple work. 18,000 people out of work.

The Jews rebelled against the Romans in 66 AD and they did so starting at Masada which was a Roman fortress and then moved on then to Jerusalem. They overcame the Romans at Antonia Fortress. The Romans immediately retaliated in Caesarea on the coast by killing all the Jews that were there and And interestingly, it took a while for the Romans to actually retaliate.

And there are some reasons why. We'll go over that. But there were kind of waves of Roman retaliation for this, ending with this destruction of Jerusalem, except there were subsequent rebellions of the Jews that had to be put down. What was going on here?

Nero, who became emperor at about 17 years old, was increasingly a very neurotic and cruel man. He had his mother killed. He had his first wife killed. There was less and less support for him being emperor, and so finally he took his own life. Then you had three emperors, Galba, Betelius, and Otho, and they ruled between them a year and a half. The first guy, Galba, his soldiers did him in. Vitellius, his soldiers did him in. Otho said, oh no you're not, and he did himself in.

So then you had Vespasian, who was actually the general who was battling in Israel, then had to go back and he became the emperor, and he actually had some stability and respect, but he sent his son Titus then to be the one to go attack Jerusalem. So for the final attack on Jerusalem, Emperor Vespasian sent his son Titus to finish the job with the catastrophic defeat, as we'll see, of Jerusalem.

He had three legions that encamped over on the west side of the old city and another legion over on the Mount of Olives on the east side. So he had essentially four legions that he had command of there. They brought those legions from far, far away. So it took about six months almost to gather all these soldiers up and all the equipment and everything else. So it took a while. Then finally, about May of 70 AD, they got situated there around Jerusalem. We're not going to go through all the details of the Roman attack except to point out that Jesus prophesied specific details about this 37 years in advance.

Much of the details were recorded by Flavius Josephus. That, by the way, was his Roman given name. Flavius Josephus was a Pharisee, a Jewish Pharisee who initially fought for the Jews. And then he said, this is crazy. And so he switched sides. He actually became an ally with the Romans and even at one point appealed to the Jews. If you guys will obey, you won't need to fight. That's what he told them. They didn't listen.

Okay, Jesus used this rampart. That's from the Weiss translation. and this is your enemy shall throw up a rampart before you is what it says in the and we sent the Romans put up ramparts that is siege ramps with protected access recorded in the wars of the Jews written by Josephus and we have the references right there. What you see almost looks like a highway. That's the way the Romans did it. They made a very broad access so they could drive equipment and a large amount of troops up there. It was a huge access into the temple area. So they do this in four places along the walls, making wide access ramps to the walls.

Also dividing up the defenders who try to go to those places and stop this from happening. And so what Jesus talked about, you know, building up a rampart against these guys where they go and build up these siege ramps and they do it on different sides. Yep, that's exactly how it came about. 37 years after Jesus said that it would take place.

They would even have a protected tunnel that they would lay on top of these if it was an area where there was lots of enemy fire and so they'd go and lay that tunnel up and the soldiers could make access and get up there without being shot at, hit, that sort of thing.

So exert pressure on you from every side. As recorded in the Wars of the Jews 5261, Titus, Nicanor, and Josephus. Here's this Pharisee turned you know, now ally of the Romans, they walked all the way around the outside to find all the places that were vulnerable and they could attack. And at different times, the Romans did come from every side.

They also had big banks of catapult balls and the ballistas, the ballistas shown here, in a kind of a demonstration. The balisto is the idea of you're shooting kind of like a bow and arrow only it shoots really big ones. And so you have this really heavy rod being propelled and they would have guys that were really good at loading those things up and they just keep firing and firing and firing. There'd be long rows of those firing away. They also had catapult balls, and believe it or not, their catapult balls were standard sizes.

About 75 to 80 pounds was the standard size used in the attack in Jerusalem. And by the way, the catapult balls that they had were white, and they noticed that the Jews were seeing them too easily and getting out of the way, so they painted them black. This is you and your children. They shall raise your city to the ground, both you and your children in you."

The Romans break through along the north wall of the temple area with a broad rampart. What had been the Antonia fortress, they just covered that whole thing up and made a wide highway right into the temple area and then went from there into the city. So here you see a picture of them marching with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of troops going into the temple area and taking that over. You also see them in formation there on the rampart and also in formation farther in. But just a great many soldiers just pouring in like a river into the temple area and overwhelming and overcoming the Jews.

They kill almost everyone inside, and the city of Jerusalem is not already dead from internal conflict. And this is the thing, what the Jews first did, is they went in and any Jew that would not fight, they killed them. Any Jew that would not fight, they killed them. So only fighters are allowed, right? The remaining descendants of Esau also went in and joined with one of the Jewish groups that was on the west side. And so you had the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob all fighting there inside the city.

And this is a crazy number. Josephus wrote that 1,100,000 died in this attack. 100,000 were taken, sold off as slaves, taken to Rome for the victory march. Just massive numbers. There were so many that they kind of glutted the slave market at the time. Because the ones that weren't killed were sold off as slaves for the most part. Some were taken and later killed. So it was a horrible, horrible tragedy.

It was the end of the descendants of Esau, so far as we have any significant record. It was the end of the Sadducees. No more Sadducees. There were two courts allowed in Israel. One is the court of Hillel and the court of Shammai. The court of Shammai ended with the 70 AD destruction. The Essenes, who were the ones who hid the Dead Sea Scrolls, they also died in this.

The Christians who were in Jerusalem got out early and escaped. they went to Pella and were allowed to freely go. But this was a huge massive tragedy for those who were in or even related to anyone in the city of Jerusalem. A great many of them were already very badly weakened from starvation. You can imagine having that many people in the city of Jerusalem and no way to raise crops or bring any animals in or anything. Starvation was taking a huge toll. So the Romans came in and other than those that they took alive, which was a minority, just slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them, and broke everything down.

On August 28, now this is interesting because what Jesus prophesied is not one stone to be left on another, right? And especially regarding the temple. On August 28, Titus holds a high council in which he orders the temple to be preserved. The next day, August 29th, the temple is lit on fire anyway.

And all the stones are torn down. Eventually, after trying to put the fire out, they said, oh, we can't do it. Just tear it all down. And so the Romans knocked it all down. The outside wall where the Romans dumped it off, they just broke up everything there. The archaeologists have gone through, but they've left some, so he'd give an idea of what it's like for this rubble that once was the temple. And this is where it's located.

So he changed his orders to tear everything apart. Tear it all apart. Tear everything down. The soldiers pushed stones off the temple mount, breaking them into rubble. not one solid piece. There was also what's called Robinson's Arch, which was another way to get into the temple area that was broken up. So the killing, burning, and tearing apart continues all during this time raising the city.

So in terms of prophecy, how did Jesus do? We've seen Jesus predicted what would happen with great accuracy on several key points. Everything has been confirmed archaeologically and also by record of Josephus. There's another record, Suetonius was a Latin writer who also recorded a number of events here. Everything happened just exactly as Jesus predicted.

He predicted not even one stone left on another 37 years in advance of the actual events. That's one of the things last year going to Israel, I walked around, you know, up on the Temple Mount and Yeah, there is nothing. There is nothing here from that time. They peeled everything off.

In addition, General Titus had given orders the day before the temple was to be preserved, and that didn't happen. So if his orders had been followed, Jesus' prediction would have been wrong. One more thing, later the Romans planned to rebuild the temple, but the funding fell through before they could put it together. So what Jesus predicted was exactly what took place, even though the Romans before and afterwards had a different intent.

Here's Luke 19, 45 and 46, And Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, It is written, And my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a robber's den. And Wiest translates it this way, And having gone into the temple, he began throwing out those who were selling, saying to them, It has been written, and is at present on record, And my house shall be a house of prayer. But as for you, you made it a robber's cave. So the first cleansing of the temple we read about in Scripture is in John chapter 2, 13-22.

So that's early in Jesus' ministry. So here's an instance that's late. Back in John, He drove the animals out and turned the tables over that contained all the coins. All the money changers' tables. So you can imagine, here Jesus goes in and He's, you know, He's going for it.

He's telling these guys in no uncertain terms, get out of here. So now he cleanses the temple again. He wrote a temple. He used a word that refers to the outer courtyard of the temple, not the inner part. But the picture is money is flying. These guys are being run out. By the way, they have a substantial business because this is a time during Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and all that. So people are coming in there and he's driving them out in the midst of a very busy time and this is like a major disruption to their commerce.

Here would be a a model of the temple and the courtyard so you can see the area around the outside and including those porticoes. Those porticoes around the perimeter are an area that's pretty substantial. You'd have about 45 to 50 feet inside all the way around the perimeter. The one right at the entrance where Jesus went in initially from the east called Solomon's portico. And so they'd have money changers and animals in that open area, as well as all the porticos would be a place they could do it as well.

So this is the second cleansing, and it says specifically he drove out the sellers. Imagine these guys, you know, he's driving them out, but maybe the animals are still in, you know, and of course they're going, you know, my animals. So here's Luke 19, 47 and 48.

And he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him. And they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on every word that he said. And Wiest translates it this way. And he was teaching daily in the temple, and the chief priests and the men learned in the sacred scriptures and the leaders of the people were seeking to destroy him. And they were not finding the particular thing which they might do, for all the people hearing him were clinging closely to him, hanging on his words."

So Jesus continued to go into the temple, and he'd go into the courtyard area and to the area where the porticos, wherever there was opportunity there. The porticos is a place you could get out of the sun and get out of rain if there was rain there. He didn't hide out. He didn't hold back on his teaching. He continued to say things boldly. He made himself available for interaction and questions.

What was interesting is he wasn't so full of himself and preoccupied with this upcoming crucifixion that he couldn't interact with people. And you can imagine, I mean, a lot of us, if we try to put ourselves in that spot, you think, man, I'm getting crucified here in a few days. And we would tend to get so much worked up that we couldn't even interact effectively. It would be very distracting. Christ was not that way.

And it really amazes me, even on the day He was crucified, to turn to this man and say today you'll be with me in paradise. That is really amazing. He taught daily. That means every day he went in there to the temple and he would talk and be available to them. Now there were those seeking to destroy him.

The chief priest led by Caiaphas who were Sadducees. And here's the way it worked. The chief priest who had to be a descendant of Aaron, the chief priest was a Sadducee, and as it worked out, Annas had been a chief priest before Caiaphas. Caiaphas was his son-in-law, and Annas arranged for about the next half-dozen chief priests to be some kind of a family member. Son-in-law, son, and he just kind of continued it on as a family tradition as long as he was around. They were Sadducees, Sadducees.

They believed in no resurrection. They didn't believe in most of the Bible, from what we can tell. They didn't believe in miracles. They were very skeptical. It's here and it's now and that's it. What you get here is all you're going to get. That's their idea. The men learned it in the sacred scriptures. These were the scribes, and they were frequently aligned with the Pharisees. And the leaders of the people, these were typically referring to Pharisees who were on the Sanhedrin. They would tend to be a majority, and the Sadducees a minority. All these were seeking to destroy him, but they were having a hard time finding something they could catch him on. Imagine you're trying to come up with some question, some puzzle to catch Jesus on.

And think about this. How do you surprise a guy who knows everything about the future? You can't come up with something that he doesn't already know you're going to ask. That makes it very difficult, right? And so they weren't able to catch him on anything.

The people were listening to what Jesus said. And as we go through this over these next several Sundays, we'll be seeing some of the questions that they come up with. some of the ways they try to catch him. It doesn't work, but they try it anyway. Only days before the crowd would yell, crucify him, the people hearing Jesus teaching in the temple were listening intently to him, hanging on his every word. It's likely that there's at least some difference between this group here and those who were shouting, crucify him, and not exactly the same crowd. Nonetheless, it's amazing how people can be manipulated and also be fickle. And so it would only be days before they would yell for his crucifixion.

Now, some of the applications that we have from seeing this is taught in First Corinthians 13, 8 through 13. We did that back in December 2009. You all remember that clearly, of course, right? And also, as the First Corinthians electable convey as well, tongues was a sign of warning to the Jews.

The gift of tongues, as it was called, the sign of warning to the Jews. That warning ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. For this reason, that's one of the reasons why we don't teach that the gift of tongues is for today. The judgment that the tongues warned of came to pass in 70 AD. So we don't need to continue the warning for something that's already passed.

Another point to make here, rejecting the gospel of the kingdom, as we saw for the Jews, had some very, very serious and tragic consequences for the Jews who were around during the 66 to 70 AD period, and for the Jews in the centuries to follow. Their temple was destroyed. As a matter of fact, the Romans pushed them away for as long as they held power.

In the same way, rejecting the gospel of substitution, that is, Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again, also has some serious eternal consequences for those who fail to take advantage of God's amazing grace and abundant mercy. We won't take the time to go through it in detail, but from Genesis to Revelation, the gospel substitution, that is that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again, is portrayed all the way from Genesis into the book of Revelation. In Revelation we see that Christ is the Lamb throughout the book. The gospel of the kingdom, a different gospel, also goes from Genesis to Revelation. And so this Gospel of the substitution and gospel of kingdom distinction is an important one to take note of. For us, here and now, the particular one that we need to pay attention to is the gospel of substitution, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again.

Also, the Jews got some of their thinking backwards. The Jews who battled the Romans thought that taking back their land by force was the righteous thing to do. In fact, that's not the way God works. They were to be obedient, and then God would give them the land, and their enemies would fear them. In fact, they needed the righteousness of Christ, whom they rejected, to dwell in the land. As for us, we ought not to get things out of order either, to get the cart before the horse, so to speak. God doesn't want for us to try to be righteous so that God will smile on us.

Many people have that backwards. I remember at the community college where Nancy and I went, one of the journalism students went around asking people around the school, you know, are you good enough to get to heaven? Ah, it's a very revealing question. Because the right answer is no, right? I need Christ's righteousness. Righteousness comes by Christ living in and through us. That's God's intent.

The other thing that we see from this is we are the temple. Christ cleansed the temple in Jerusalem at least twice. It's possible, by the way, that he cleansed it other times too, and it's not recorded. But Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6 that we individually and together as a church body are a temple, since the Holy Spirit indwells each of us and all of us together. So in our position, we are each and together, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, in which we have a stewardship entrusted to us, both regarding our own bodies and our own lives, as well as together among us in the body of Christ. We are the temple. We individually and we together are the temple. Let's pray.

Lord, we do thank you for just what your word and what you revealed. We thank you for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And Lord, we see in this the great compassion that he had for these people and the great sorrow that they had rejected him and the consequences that that would have. And so as we look at these things, Lord, we just would ask that you draw our hearts to you, to behold you, to depend upon you, to abide in you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.