In the sermon 'How Often I Wanted to Gather Your Children,' Scott Brown reflects on Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, likening His desire to gather His people to a hen protecting her chicks. The sermon emphasizes the dual condition of humanity: those who rejoice at the prophet's voice and those who question and reject it. It highlights Jesus' compassionate longing to save His people despite their unwillingness, and the tragedy of spiritual blindness, particularly among the Pharisees. This blindness prevents people from truly seeing and responding to the kingdom of heaven. The sermon underscores the repeated sending of prophets by God and the persistent rejection they faced, culminating in the rejection of Jesus Himself. It also explores the imagery of protection and healing under God's wings, urging listeners to reflect on their own spiritual state and response to God's call. The sermon closes by encouraging a heart that rejoices in God's mercy and salvation, symbolized by the phrase 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings But you were not willing See your house is left to you dazzle it For I say to you you shall see me no more till you say Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Can you join me in prayer? Oh Father God, we thank you for your word this morning and we thank you for the elders that you have set above us who preach your word faithfully to us. Father, I pray that you will Be upon Scott now as he brings us your word. May your words come through him Lord and may we be willing listeners and not just listeners of your word but doers of your word Lord. In Jesus name, amen.

It's such a pleasure to be gathered together under the words of this passage of Scripture, to be gathered here together as a hen gathers for chicks, you know, to hear the sound of His prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to bask in the goodness of His protective arms around us, His feathers that cover us, and to celebrate the willingness of God to take up a sinful people, to care for them, to forgive them, to nurture them, and to rejoice again that he sent many prophets as we're being reminded here of this passage. And to ask ourselves that question again, do I love the sound of the voice of the prophets? And do I love the sound of the voice of the prophet, Jesus Christ, which is really the central issue of this passage. And you know, here this text, as has happened so many times, shows us again the heart of the Gospel. That there are only two conditions of mankind.

There's the rejoicing heart when it hears the sound of the prophet. And then there's the questioning heart that just pounds away, one question after another. And also the tears of mercy and longing of Christ to bless mankind. And then, you know, these rejoicing hearts, enjoying, loving the wings of protection, and escaping the hardness of the desolation that Jesus Christ is pronouncing here to those who would reject Him. So that's really the scope of what's happening here.

And you know, here what we have is what we've seen over and over again in the gospel of Matthew And that is Jesus Christ's appeal to see and to hear him and to respond. You know, this whole matter of eyes to see and ears to hear is so critical. You know, just this week, we prayed for a young man in our church who had a blast in his eyes of over 2, 000 pounds of pressure of junk and water that just were blown into his eyes. We prayed for his eyes and we were also aware of how precious those eyes were. We were sitting in prayer and I got a text saying that his eyes are fine.

And we were overjoyed at that. But we were also keenly aware of a greater tragedy, and that is spiritual blindness. The inability to see the kingdom of heaven, the inability to taste and see that the Lord is good, The inability for the ears to hear, yes, they can hear the sounds, but it's as if those sounds just fall on deaf ears. And here, Jesus Christ, over and over again, has been addressing in chapter 23, the eyes of the blind, blind Pharisees, he says. You can't see the kingdom of heaven.

And that's what he's been addressing this whole time in chapter 23. He's used the word blind to speak of the very, very worst kinds of things that can happen to your spiritual eyes. And this has been a theme of the Lord Jesus Christ all throughout the Gospel of Matthew. Like in Matthew 13, he says, for the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them." He says, but blessed are your eyes for they see. And that's what Jesus Christ is contending with here.

Eyes that don't see, Eyes that are blind. And so what is happening here is the Lord Jesus is pronouncing judgment. Like in chapter 21 verse 24, He says, therefore I say to you, the kingdom will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. So we've been in this section of Jesus Christ giving one speech after another in one place from actually since July 1st we've been we've been dealing with Jesus speaking in one place in the temple he's been everything we've done from July 1st to now Three and a half months has really probably been one day or maybe two days in the life of Jesus in the temple. You know, remember he entered into the temple and he cleared the temple.

He turned over the tables of the money changers, and he stopped all the traffic there. This is in chapter 21. Now, it's amazing here that so much of the Scriptures is devoted to this last week of Jesus' life. It begins with the triumphal entry in chapter 21. Go ahead and turn back and look at chapter 21 and you'll see what happens.

Look at chapter 21 in verse 12. Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned their tables. That really begins the whole discussion that's being had here. And from this point All the way to the end is a record of the last week of Jesus' life. Fully one-fourth of the Gospel of Matthew is given to this.

One-third of Mark, one-half of the Gospel of John is given to this last week of Jesus' life. He is announcing and then experiencing everything that he came for, to be a sacrifice for sin. And so here, He cleanses the temple on Monday, and then probably Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, he's in the temple. It actually could have taken place in one day, I'm not sure. But the whole of what Jesus has been saying while He's been in the temple is really a fulfillment of Psalm 118.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Remember when he was coming to the temple, coming into Jerusalem, this is what the children were crying out. And then he came into the temple and they were crying it out more. And the Pharisee said, stop your disciples from saying this. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

So this is a very dramatic moment. He's cleared the temple. He's been speaking in the temple. And now he cries out, oh, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets. And here, This is one of the most powerful examples of the interaction of a prophet with his people.

Jesus is the prophet. If you go back to chapter 21, you'll see that he was being proclaimed as a prophet. And that's the whole issue that Jesus is dealing with here. What do you do when you hear the sound of the voice of a prophet, of a prophet of God? Do you love the sound of His voice?

Do you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, or you just have a bunch of questions. That makes the difference between whether you are on one side or the other in the kingdom. And this whole passage is about the judgment of God against those who have rejected the sound of His prophets' voices. And it's also a disclosure of His long-suffering, how many times He's spoken to them. And so here, what I want to deal with this morning in this passage are five different things that you see in these three verses.

First of all, His lament in verse 37. Second, His longing. Third, His analysis of the situation. And fourth, their devastation. And then fifth, their only hope.

So let's begin with this lament. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets in stones, those who are sent to her. Here is this outpouring of emotion, which is so characteristic of the Lord Jesus Christ and others in the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus said, Simon, Simon. He said, Martha, Martha.

David cried out for his son and said, Absalom, Absalom. And here you have a shepherd crying out for his sheep, a father crying out for his children. There's so many places in Scripture where you find fathers who are crying out for their children. If you're a father, you know what that's all about. How many times have you cried out for your children?

And the Lord Jesus Christ is just like that. The reason you cry out for your children is because your Savior, Jesus Christ, cries out for His children as well. And then in this outpouring of emotion is this terrible accusation that they are persecuting the prophets, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. Now God has spoken through many, many prophets. I asked my interns to count how many prophets there were in the Bible.

One of them counted 89. Well, there are probably more than that because there are bands of prophets that go out as well. But Peter said that God has spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began. So the prophets just didn't begin with the major prophets in the Bible. The prophets begin at the beginning of the Bible.

Those who speak for God, there's Abel, Abraham, Enoch, Moses, Samuel, Ezra, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, on and on and on and on. God has sent many, many prophets. And it just bears witness to the problem of mankind, that he rejects the prophets and how many, many, many God has sent. In Hebrews 1 we read, God who at sundry times and diverse manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets. So the idea here that Jesus is presenting is that he has sent so many prophets.

He's made it so easy. He's delivered everything that's necessary for them to turn and to repent. And at the same time, here, the place that received the prophets like no other place became really the central office for persecution of the prophets. And It's where Jesus Christ was crucified. It was where Stephen was stoned.

They had rejected the prophets. And here, they're rejecting the greatest prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. The culmination of all prophecy is now being rejected by the Jews. And now, you know, the Lord Jesus is crying out here, you know, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Well, Jesus thought the situation was much worse than the Pharisees did.

They were riding along in their law keeping. They had their organizational religious structure running quite nicely. It was well financed and lots of people were involved and they thought it was running fine, thank you. But Jesus Christ has a completely different view of religion than man does. Man looks on his own religion and he's self-satisfied.

Man looks on his own self, his own church, his own way, his own doctrine, his own theology, and he says, I'm fine. I've checked all my boxes. And the Lord Jesus Christ is coming and saying, no, I see into the heart. I see that you have actually just been checking boxes, and your heart is far from me." And so the Lord is coming here and he's presenting to them that the situation is far worse than they think it is. They're not disturbed.

They're not repentant. And Jesus Christ is here in this place now to call them to repentance. And you just might think of how many ways God used to gather you, to speak to you. How many people He sent to you. He might have sent a calamity to you to wake you up.

He may have sent the death of a father or a mother or a brother. He may have sent to you a mother who you knew was praying for you over and over again. He may have sent a television or a radio broadcast to you or a friend, a co-worker. God works in so many ways. He sends so many prophets in so many different ways.

And that's what he's speaking of here. How many times. And here the Lord Jesus Christ is that prophet. In fact, in chapter 21 verse 11, the multitudes are saying, this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. This is now the prophet that they are rejecting.

And so you see, you see this lament, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The situation is far more grave than they thought it was. Here's what I want you to think about. Is it possible that you think your situation is so much better than it really is? That you look at your life, your religion, and Jesus Christ actually has a different opinion of it.

Ask yourself that question, because that was the situation with the scribes and the Pharisees. And really, all of Jerusalem, they had gotten wrapped up in a lifeless, dead religion. And when you read this, you have to ask yourself, am I like this? Does this connect with me? Ask yourself that question.

And it may be that you have lived a phony life and you're not a Christian. It may be, however, that you need to cry out to God for areas of hypocrisy and phoniness that are in your life, just like we've been considering this whole time in chapter 23. So the first thing you see here is lament. Do you lament? Do you lament for your sins?

You know, I was really struggling with this this week and I recognize that every time I was going to God in prayer, that I was always opening with a lament. I was always opening with a cry of lamentation for my own life, for my own short fallings. And I was going on in the week, and I realized every time I was praying, it was all, it was, I lament a sigh. And then about toward the end of the week, I was reading, I was reading in Isaiah, and I read something there that made me realize how, in many ways, how wrong I had been. It's right for me to lament my shortcomings and my sins.

But I was reminded that the Lord said, enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise because of the great things that God has done. I was so grateful for that, that He stopped me up from just a constant lamentation over my sins and my weaknesses, but that He desires me to enter into His gates with thanksgiving for how great He is. I turn my whole week around. But first, the lamentation, the lamentation really is the beginning, it's the entry point, It's the door to life. It's the way that your mourning turns to dancing.

To turn your heart to Christ. To see Him as He really is and what He's done for you. And then there's His longing in verse 37, the second point here. His longing, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. This imagery of chicks and wings and things like that is so remarkable.

Jim Santles came into my office this week and he said, here, you've got to see this. And then he started telling me about this little video clip he was showing his children of these chicks and this mother hen protecting it because there was a mean crow coming in and he was showing all his little children this great little video clip that is really explanatory of this passage of scripture. And I don't know, have you ever bought chicks before? Have you ever gotten mail order chickens? It's really remarkable.

I was so astonished when my wife did this for many, many years ago. She said she was going to get chickens, chicks. And so she goes to the post office, and she gets this box of chicks and brings them home. And there they are, chirping. No one can hear the sound of chirping chicks and not say, oh, oh, let me take care of these sweet little things.

Well, there's just something about this imagery that's so remarkable. And my mind is just brought back to the little chirping sounds of these little chicks that my wife brought home for us. Well, there's so many things that we could say about this one statement. First of all, these first two words, how often, how often, this is the lavish communication of God. How many missions the disciples went on, how many offers of salvation but they were not heard.

And I was taken back to my own conversion and how many different ways God used to speak to me. For one thing, he gave me a father who started reading the Bible because my father was working with a man at his school who was reading the Bible. And then how we started reading the Bible together, how God sent different workers into my high school campus, how there were friends that just started popping up. And we ended up in a church where the gospel was truly preached. All these different things happening.

The Prophets were being sent from all directions. I'm so grateful that that happened. And this is true with all of us. God doesn't just do one thing. He sends many, many prophets.

Because we are so dull, we're so slow, We seem to need more. So he sends more in his lavish mercies toward us. You just might think of the many ways that God used to call you. How many were there? My guess is it's many more than one way that God used to speak.

You think of how loving He is toward His children. There He is up in His great sky, and here we are, His little creatures running around. And he arranges things that we cannot arrange, listening to things that we never could have on our own, arranging relationships that none of us ever could have arranged, causing people to be born so that they would come and preach the gospel to us. There's so much that God has done to come and speak to us. And so he says, how often, how often I wanted.

Here you find the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, His compassion, His mercy toward mankind. Ezekiel 33 verse 11 speaks of it so well. The prophet says, Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel? This is the Lord, This is God the Father who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

If your Calvinism doesn't have room for that, you don't understand what the Bible says about the compassionate and willing heart of God to save sinners. He says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. There's much to be said about that, but we have to recognize that God's mercy is towards sinners. And this is why the Lord Jesus Christ is constantly finding himself among sinners. In Matthew chapter 9 we read Jesus is going about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness, every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep with no shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray, the Lord of the harvest, that He might send out laborers into His harvest. This is His heart. He has compassion on them because they're like sheep without a shepherd.

Here, they're like little chicks without a hen, but He'll be that hen. His willingness to save is so great. And then we see his will, his will. He says, I wanted, I wanted to gather. You see the kindness of God.

This is no contradiction to the sovereignty of God at all. This is just simply the richness and the beauty of the mighty sovereign hand of God. He in His willingness, in His compassion, in His desire not to see the destruction of mankind. He reaches out and he does what man cannot do for himself. He turns their hearts.

The will of God saves. The will of man damns. That's what Charles Spurgeon said in dealing with this passage of Scripture. And so we have the compassion of Jesus Christ for the lost, which is why the Apostle Paul said, I wish I were a curse. I wish I were cut off for the sake of my brethren." He had the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then this imagery, like a hen, I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings." So throughout the Gospel of Matthew we've encountered so many different ways of understanding the heart and the character of Jesus. He's a rock. He's the bread. He's the way. He's the truth.

He's the life. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's the king of kings. He's the vine dresser. He's the shepherd.

He's the door. He's a refuge. He's wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Now here, he's like a hen. Isn't that strange?

What does a hen have to do with a lion? Well, Here is just another element of the character and the nature of Jesus Christ. You can't pin Him down. There's not a single image that can capture the greatness and the beauty, the wisdom, the love, The perfections, the power, the insight, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You just can't pin Him down with one thing.

He's so beautiful in so many ways. And here He's a hen. He's a hen. It's amazing to me that this would be the language. Dana read Psalm 91 about abiding in the shadow of the Almighty and being delivered from the snare of the Fowler and being protected under these wings.

And so you just encounter this tenderness of hens toward chickens, You know, these little chicks, chirping. I don't know if you ever thought that somehow the Lord Jesus Christ looks at you that way. He looks at you like a little chirping chicken. That's who you are. You are a people.

You are a flock. You're a building. You are a temple. And you're also a bunch of chirping chickens. And here, you know, the imagery is a protection.

It's a compassion. Because who can look at a chirping little yellow chick and not have compassion? Compassion. And he becomes a father or a mother to the chickens. He provides, he supplies, he gives hope, he's present, and He covers you.

This is the imagery that's here. And it just makes me so thankful for the mercy of God toward His chicks, His people. He calls them his children. Children and chicks are the two words that he uses to speak of his people. And when they're in danger, he circles them and he puts her wings around them.

There's so many passages of scripture that contain this imagery of wings and protection. You know, for many years I would recite a Psalm to my children about the shadow of his wings, especially at night, just when they were going to bed. On my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings." My children heard that, said to them over and over again, and they were growing up.

I love this imagery. I'm so grateful for it. David cried out for those wings in Psalm 17 verse 8 when he said, Show your marvelous loving kindness by your right hand. Oh, you who save those who trust in you from those who rise up against them, keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me under the shadow of your wings." And then in Psalm 63, Thus I will bless you while I live, I will lift up my hands in your name, My soul is satisfied as with the marrow and fatness, And my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. On my bed I remember you.

I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings." The prophet Malachi spoke of his wings as if they were like medicine. Malachi 4.2, but you who fear my name, the son of righteousness, shall arise with healing in his wings, and you shall go out and grow like stall-fed calves." Here the imagery of wings are actually, there's healing in the wings that are there. Not only is there protection, not only is there just the freedom to sing, sing for joy. There's also this medicine.

You know, this imagery is something that we will be singing for all eternity. In Revelation Chapter 15, we learn that we will be singing the song of Moses in heaven. Did you know that? We talked about this when we were in Deuteronomy. The song of Moses in Deuteronomy Chapter 32.

This imagery is there. You'll be singing about these wings for all eternity. You'll be so thankful. You'll look back and see the thousands of times He's covered you with His wings, how He's overwhelmed you and He's surrounded you with medicine. He's kept you alive.

He's protected you. He got you to the end of it. You'll think of it so many times. And remember Deuteronomy 32? It's such a beautiful song, the song of Moses.

It's a long, long song. We took several weeks to go through the Song of Moses when we were doing it. Deuteronomy 32, 11, as an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up and carrying them on his wings. This is the life of the chick, the child of God. This is the mercy of Jesus Christ.

There are so many places that this is mentioned, you can even find it in Ruth, Chapter 2, Verse 12. What these wings mean for a single woman. You know what these wings mean for a single woman? Much. And Boaz answered and said to her, It has been fully reported to me that you have, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have now come to the people you did not know before.

The Lord repay your work and full reward given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge." This was the heart of a single woman, to have herself under the wings of God for her refuge. This was the secret of her singleness. This was the success of her singleness. This was the joy of her singleness. That she had fled to the God of Israel to rest under His wings.

It's the only hope for any single person or any married person or even for a city, as Isaiah 31 says, like birds flying about, so the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem, defending, He will also deliver it, Passing over it, He will preserve it. This whole idea is like being covered with the wings of protection. And this is why we read of these wings. And so here you just get this revelation of Jesus Christ in his longing. How he views you and what he plans to do for you as his child.

And here he's lamented because he has stray chicks that are running everywhere, and they're going to be devoured. They're going to feel the sharp talons of the eagle, and they're going to be destroyed. That's the imagery that's here. And then his analysis of the situation in verse 37, but you were not willing. But you were not willing.

This is the great tragedy of the human heart. And the dangers of just questioning Jesus, rather than rejoicing in His words, rather than receiving them as they are, rather than soaking in them and loving them, saturating yourself in them. It's so dangerous. You were not willing. He says, how often I wanted, but you were not willing.

So you have these two wills in clash against one another. How much I wanted and how you were not willing. This is the clash, the tragic clash here. He wanted to save them. He was willing to save them, but they were not willing to be saved.

The truth is, man needs a new will. That's why we read in the scriptures today, if you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Usually, we just want a little bit more time. I'm going to keep my heart hard just a little bit longer, until I can experience this, until I get a place in this place in my life. And we delay it and we delay it and we delay it.

And we're not willing. And we keep advancing our unwillingness, thinking some day we will be willing, but we won't be willing. And that's why the Lord Jesus says today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion. God's fervent desire is here. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways, for I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies, says the Lord.

Therefore turn and live." And then their devastation, their devastation in verse 38, "'See, your house is left to you desolate. See, your house is left to you desolate See your house is left to you desolate behold See it The house what house is he talking about? He's talking about the temple Remember he's been in the temple this whole time. Your house is left desolate. He's standing in the house, in the temple of God.

In chapter 21, He says, it's my house. This is my house. And it's become a den of robbers. And you have to ask yourself, what house is left desolate? And I believe that it's literally the house.

Because in the next two verses, when they walk out of the temple court and they make their way down the road, they look back toward the temple and Jesus tells them, this temple is going to come down. This house is coming down. You might want to spiritualize it. And I can see how you can do that, but, and there probably is a spiritual element to it. But he has been speaking in his house, in his temple, to the men who operate that temple.

He's turned over the tables in his house already. And now he is saying, your house is left to you desolate. You can find this in Daniel chapter 9, But what's happening here is Christ is abandoning this house. He is abandoning this temple. And He's removing His blessing from a nation.

The term desolate means abandoned, empty, hollow. Well it was already that way. It was already abandoned and empty and hollow. He's really declaring what it really is. All through chapter 23, Jesus has been looking into the hearts of the Pharisees and exposing hypocrisy.

Every kind of hypocrisy you can imagine. And now, at the end of that whole disclosure of hypocrisy and emptiness and bankruptcy and all this about the inside of the cup, he's now saying, What you really are is now coming to final fruition. And Jesus is now going to walk out of that temple. His presence left that temple a long time before that. And what it teaches is you can have a rolling religion, you can have practices that have some coordinates to the Bible and be desolate and be empty and not have Jesus Christ there in your heart.

That's the whole matter that he's been dealing with. He's saying you're just cleaning the outside of the cup, but inside you're full of robbery and extortion. First clean the inside of the cup. And so Jesus is going to destroy the city, he's going to destroy the temple, and he's going to absolutely level all the vestiges of religion that they have established. And there will be some who will continue to try to keep it going, and the apostles will be talking to them later on.

But he's leaving it desolate. Isaiah 26, 5 says, for he brings down those who dwell on high. The lofty city he lays low. He lays it low to the ground. He brings it down to the dust.

And so here God is unraveling a dead religion. And this is what Jesus Christ was always doing in his ministry. He was always unraveling dead religion. He was always preaching in order to find those who loved the sound of the voice of a prophet, to gather them in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and to gently lead those who are with young, as Isaiah 40 says. And then, their only hope, verse 39, their only hope, For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." What a terrible pronouncement.

You will see me no more until. Now, when is this time? What is he talking about? Now, if you read up on this or if you have you know there are there are many propositions about when this is is it a physical moment in history Or is it like a spiritual awakening? You know, they did not see Him as Messiah, and so they're being rejected.

Or Some have said that this is the resurrection. For example, in Matthew 26, 64, they say, tell us if you're the Christ, and He says, it is as you said hereafter, you will see the Son of Man sitting on his throne. So Jesus says that they are going to see him sitting on his throne. Is that what that means? Is it seeing him in his resurrection, or is it, some have said it's the millennial kingdom.

Others have said it's the time when the Jews are converted. You can see that in Romans chapter 11 verses 23 to 26. Others have said it's not till the final judgment. And I don't know for sure. But in one way, it might not matter that much.

Because what he is saying is that when your eyes do not see, when your eyes do not see, you will be condemned. That's the idea. If your eyes cannot see, if your ears cannot hear, if when you hear the sound of the voice of the Prophet, that your heart doesn't say, yes Lord, That's the whole matter that he's dealing with here. There's so many things in this passage to try to deal with. We've seen the compassion of Jesus Christ on the disobedient.

How often, how many times he sent words to his people. And I don't know, there may be some of you here who you've heard the words so many times and you're just dead to it. Maybe that's who you are in this story. You always have to ask, who am I in the story? Am I the person that has just heard over and over and over and over again?

Am I the person who's just dead in my heart toward the words of Jesus Christ. And because of that, I cannot believe. And maybe you're just waiting for some rush of emotion. And I would just say, don't wait for the rush of emotion. Do you believe?

Do you believe? Do you have faith that this is true? Does your heart say, yes, Lord, I believe? We're justified by faith and faith alone. The faith that says, yes, Lord, I believe that you are who you say you are.

I believe Father that you sent your Son. I believe Father that you made Him who knew no sin to be sin for me. Lord I believe that. There's so much to learn about the tenderness of Christ toward His children and the way that He sees sinners, the way that He views mankind. And we should ask ourselves, is that how I view mankind?

Am I just rejecting the lost? Am I so offended by their lives that I don't want to be around them. This is not Jesus Christ. This is not the heart of Christ at all. Jesus Christ is always demonstrating His love for the lost, for the demon possessed, for the sick, for the angry, for the hateful.

He teaches, He labors, He speaks with those who hate Him. They have knives hidden in their clothes, and He is speaking words of life to them. And you see the compassion that Jesus Christ has. My prayer has been, Oh Lord, give me that same compassion. Give me that same love that you have for the lost.

And then to recognize, you know, even for yourself, you know, maybe you've been like me and all you've been doing is lamenting. All you've been doing is lamenting your life and your weaknesses and you've forgotten these wings. You've forgotten how He looks upon you, that He loves you, that His mercies are great toward you, and that He's calling you to come into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Maybe you're like that. Is it possible to sort of get out of touch with the love of God toward you?

To recognize how great the Father's love is for us? Have you forgotten that? Well, here the Lord Jesus is just reminding us of that, so that we wouldn't be walking around with such heavy burdens that He would turn our mourning into dancing. That He would have a people who know the truth, and the truth has made them free. And they're free indeed.

Because they're resting in the shadow of their wings. And they're singing in the shadow of their wings. And they're being healed under the shadow of their wings. Isn't that what is happening to you? If you've walked in here, and I'm sure many of you have, because I have done it so many times, so out of touch with the great and tender mercies of God.

He's healing me. He's taking me to heaven. He's sanctifying me. He's never left me or forsaken me. He's like that hen.

He's like a hen toward me. And He is hovering over me and covering me with his wings, because he loves me. And you see the awful dangers of rejecting Christ here as well. Your house will be left to you desolate. Nothing worse than emptiness, desolation, fakeness, outward religion, where there's no heart.

Jesus is saying, this is a lot worse than you think it is. You can kind of run on religious autopilot, but Jesus is saying, no, your house is left to you desolate. I'd like to close our time with the reading of Psalm 118. Because Psalm 118, I really believe, is the heart of the matter that Jesus Christ is dealing with in this passage. And it's quoted several times in this section in the temple where Jesus has been speaking since chapter 21 verse 12.

And I wanted us to somehow this morning see that Jesus Christ has been laboring with the Pharisees over and over again on really the same issue of life, and it's found in Psalm 118. And what he's really identifying is that there's a way of living. It's the way of eternal life. It's the way of the sheep, the chicken, the people of God. And It's the way of the hearing ear that rejoices at the sound of the prophet's voice.

That's what he's talking about here. There are those who reject the prophets, and there are Those who love the sounds of the voices of the prophets. Those whose hearts are hungry, those whose hearts are just asking a bunch of questions. They just want to figure out what's going on. Rather than hungering, longing for God, for holiness, for love.

Psalm 118. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. That is the heart that he is speaking of here, that has been lost in the temple. For his mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say his mercy endures forever.

Let the house of Aaron say his mercy endures forever. Do you get it? Do you get what Jesus is saying? He's saying, my chicks, my people, let them say, let them say His mercy endures forever. Let this bubble up in their hearts.

Let this be the theme of their life. Let this be what energizes them. Let this be what opens their mouths and warms their hearts. Let this be it. Let those who fear the Lord now say, His mercy endures forever.

Verse 5, I called on the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?

The Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princess. All nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They surrounded me like bees, they were quenched like a fire of thorns. For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. You pushed me violently that I might fall, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord.

The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go through them and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise you, For you have answered me and have become my salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I pray, O Lord.

O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That's the heart of this message. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.

God is the Lord and he has given us light, buying the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God and I will praise You. You are my God, I will exalt You. O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever." What the Pharisees could not say was, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. But the children could say it in the temple, and the multitudes of Jesus coming into Jerusalem could say it.

And this is the difference between dead religion that will be punished by eternal fire and true Christianity that's characterized by heart that says, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And I pray that this is the great mark of us as a people. Here we are, a little congregation, a little group of chicks, a little flock, children under the shadow of his wings. And let it not ever be said of us that we aren't constantly saying, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, that we're not constantly saying, for his mercy endures forever, that we would say, we will rejoice and be glad in it, and we will do it from the house of the Lord. And that's why God's gathered us here, is to do that.

And for anyone who can't do it, to pray, to witness, to speak, to love, to be like that hen so desiring to gather chicks under his wings, not to reject, but to long for the salvation of the wicked. This is why God has called us. And Jesus Christ is revealing the importance of the kind of temple that he desires to build. The temple of the Holy Spirit, you and I. The church, the temple of God.

A temple that is full of this one voice that says, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. May it be said of us. Would you pray with me? Lord, Lord, we thank you for your longings, your willingness to save, your love, Your wings, the medicine that comes out of those wings of love. Oh, we thank you for it, Lord, that you would be found today covering us with those wings as we're here enjoying the various pieces of the banquet that you've laid before us today.

Amen.