Matthew 23: 37 - 39 Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem.

Your House is left to you desolate.

Mat 23:37  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! you who murder the Prophets and stone those who have been sent to thee! how often have I desired to gather thy children to me, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not come!

Mat 23:38  See, your house will now be left to you desolate!

Mat 23:39  For I tell you that you will never see me again until you say, 'BLESSED BE HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.'" WNT

Introduction

Jesus has finished his Eight Woes of Condemnation of the Jewish Religious Leadership. He called the Scribes and Pharisees before Him Hypocrites, a brood of Vipers and murderers of the prophets sent to them. He is about to tell what is coming upon this generation who were listening to Him. What a lamentation is now spilling out of His heart for this people.

Brood of Vipers.

Comments

Mat 23:37  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  [you, who murder] the Prophets and stone those who have been sent to thee! how often have I desired to gather your children to me, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not come!

Notes

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  [you, who murder] the Prophets and stone those who have been sent to thee!....

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill 

Here we have the very heart of God being poured out for this city which was the centre of the Jewish nation but more importantly the centre of the religious life of a people. For centuries Jerusalem and the Temple had been the rallying  point of the Jews.

But  they had stoned the prophets sent  to them by God. They were murderers and wicked.

.. how often have I desired to gather your children to me, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not come!

Here is God with wide open arms longing to win them back to the place of His protection and care like a Mother hen with her chicks.

BUT YOU WOULD NOT COME!

The intense feeling that sought vent in this utterance comes out first in the redoubling of the opening word - “Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” but, next, in the picture of it which He draws - “that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee!” - not content with spurning God’s messages of mercy, that can not suffer even the messengers to live! When He adds, “How often would I have gathered thee!” He refers surely to something beyond the six or seven times that He visited and taught in Jerusalem while on earth. No doubt it points to “the prophets,” whom they “killed,” to “them that were sent unto her,” whom they “stoned.” But whom would He have gathered so often? “Thee,” truth-hating, mercy-spurning, prophet-killing Jerusalem - how often would I have gathered thee! Compare with this that affecting clause in the great ministerial commission, “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem!” (Luk_24:47). What encouragement to the heartbroken at their own long-continued and obstinate rebellion! JFB

SEE Gods Heart for Israel

For the figure, see

Deu 32:9  For Jehovah's portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

Deu 32:10  He found him in a desert land, and in the deserted, howling wilderness. He led him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

Deu 32:11  As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them and bears them on her wing,

Deu 32:12  Jehovah alone led him, and there was no strange god with him.

Rth_2:12;  May Jehovah repay your work, and may a full reward be given you from Jehovah, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to trust.

Psa_17:8  Keep me as the pupil, the daughter of the eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings,

Psa_36:7 How precious is Your loving-kindness, O God! And the sons of men take refuge under the shadow of Your wing.

Psa 61:3  For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower before the enemy.

Psa 61:4  I will dwell in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the hiding place of Your wings. Selah.

Psa 63:7  Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.

Psa_91:4 He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall trust. His truth shall be your shield, and buckler.

Isa_31:5;  As birds flying, so Jehovah of Hosts will defend Jerusalem; also defending, He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it.

Mal 4:2  But to you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise, and healing will be on His wings. And you shall go out and frisk like calves of the stall.

Mal 4:3  And you shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day which I am preparing, says Jehovah of Hosts.

BUT NOW JESUS SAYS

Mat 23:38  See, your house will now be left to you desolate! WNT

Your house will be abandoned, deserted. GW.  And now your temple will be deserted.CEV

Notes

Your house - The temple. The house of worship of the Jews. The chief ornament of Jerusalem.

Desolate - About to be desolate or destroyed. To be forsaken as a place of worship, and delivered into the hands of the Romans, and destroyed. See the notes at Matt. 24. Barnes

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus

Mat 23:39  For I tell you that you will never see me again until you say, 'BLESSED BE HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.'"

Notes

Ye shall not see me ... - The day of your mercy is gone by. I have offered you protection and salvation, and you have rejected it. You are about to crucify me, and your temple to be destroyed, and you, as a nation, to be given up to long and dreadful suffering. You will not see me as a merciful Saviour, offering you redemption any more, until you have borne these heavy judgments. They must come upon you, and be borne, until you would be glad to hail a deliverer, and say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be he that comes as the Messiah, to bring deliverance. This has not been yet accomplished, but the days will come when the Jews, long cast out and rejected, will hail Jesus as the Messiah, and receive him whom their fathers killed as the merciful Saviour, Rom_11:25-32.

Illustration

Back in the 1700s two missionaries from the Scottish Missions Board went from Freetown to the Fulani of the Fouta Djallon Mountains of Guinee. They found that they were having a civil war and it was unsafe to be there. So they withdrew to Sierra Leone. Several years later one of their number went to the Fulani and settled. One night he gave loging a Fula traveller. This man killed the Scottish missionary in the night.

NO MISSIONARIES WENT TO THE FULANI OF THE FOUTA DJALLON UNTIL MR. WATKINS OF THE CMA MISSION ARRIVED AROUND THE SECOND WORLD WAR. NEARLY 150 YEARS PASSED, AND MANY GENERATIONS WENT TO A LOST ETERNITY.

HOW SOBERING TO THINK OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES TO HEAR AND OBEY THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST!