Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus is now on the road to Calvary, after having been awake for about 24 hours and going through a kangaroo court, being lead back and forth through the streets from standing different officials.

Now that His trial is finished and Pilate has succumb to the will of the people we now find Jesus walking the long road through Jerusalem to His execution for doing nothing but showing mercy on the nation of Isreal and being the perfect and Righteous example and Picture of God toward His own people.

As Jesus has been arrested and going through this mockery of a sinful court system we have found that Jesus is truly the Innocent One and there have been so many people that have encountered Him throughout this at this point about 12 hour period.

The religious leaders have encountered the Innocent One and have had their guilt exposed.

The Gentile rulers have encountered the Innocent One and found that this man truly is Innocent.

Even a passerby has happened across Jesus and being an observer of the Innocent One, he was pressed into being a participant in bringing Jesus to the cross.

Jesus being physically weak to carry the cross Himself yet the only One Spiritually strong enough to take the sin of all mankind.

This is what it means for Jesus to be innocent and when people encounter the Innocent One they either observers or active participants in following Him.

Now as we continue this morning we will once again meet some people who encounter the Innocent one this time as we examine this next encounter we will see an encounter with the Innocent One causes people to grieve coming Judgment.

We will see this as we look at Luke 23:27-31;

As we continue on the road we see very clearly Jesus’ execution was not private, it was very public.

Crowds would gather to watch those who were on their death march through the street.

Luke tells us here that “following Him was a large crowd of people” so this crowd was here to follow Jesus, for whatever reason, whether it was because they were sympathetic to Him and were sad to see Him die or sympathetic to the religious leaders and want to follow in mockery and curiosity to see His fate.

Regardless Jesus drew a crowd.

Now within this crowd there were women who were, as it seems in the text sympathetic toward Jesus because Luke points out for us there were women among the crowd who were “mourning and lamenting.”

Now these women who are mourning and lamenting are more then likely women who have been touched or affected by Jesus’ teaching in this passed week.

They are following behind Him and it is very obvious they are grieving the judgment that is coming upon Jesus.

Many times the mourning process involved putting on sackcloth which was typically black and it was as it sounds a bag that was used to carry items in.

It was a public display of sorrow and sympathy for someone who has died or in this case one who is on His death march.

As they are going along the road to Golgotha weeping for Jesus and the judgment that has just been placed on Him we find right away that this sympathy is misguided, and Jesus points out to the women just that as we now look at Misguided Sorrow.

Misguided Sorrow

We find this in Luke 23:28; Luke writes, “But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

Here is something very powerful that I don’t want you to miss.

Jesus is on the road to Calvary, it is His death March and He has just endured such a severe unjust treatment by the religious leaders and the civil leaders of His day.

He has just gone through a long night of no to little sleep, an agonizing time in the garden in prayer, being beaten, whipped and smacked in the head with a reed He has a crown of thorns on His head and He is so exhausted He can’t even carry His own cross.

Staggering along the road and He still turns to His followers and what does He tell them, “stop weeping for Me.”

Jesus knows where He is going and He knows what He is about to do.

He also knows what is in store for the people of Jerusalem and for the nation of Israel as a whole.

His compassion for people is not only demonstrated on the cross but He is compassionate all the way to the cross.

He doesn’t want these women to weep for Him, He wants them to weep for themselves and for their children.

The sorrow they are expressing is in the wrong One and in the wrong Judgment.

Jesus’ judgment will end in a resurrection of the Body for Him and in so doing it will mean a resurrection of the Body for all who place their faith in Him.

What He tell this women is their sorrow is misguided the ones they are to be grieving is themselves and their children because a greater judgment is in store.

We also find here these women are not named specifically they are just called the “Daughters of Jerusalem.”

This is significant also.

These women are women that live in the Holy City.

These women have more then likely listen to Jesus in the passed week, whether in the temple or in another location where Jesus taught and they have found His teaching to be very powerful and life changing.

These women have chosen to follow Him and now just as they are being impacted by the grace in His teaching and the mercy in the way He treated women now He is being put to death.

This is yet another demonstration of how Jesus not only demonstrated the love of God and how He taught with great authority and power.

It is also a demonstration of how much people wanted a radical change in the way they approached God and a radical change in how they were treated by the religious leaders and the Roman government.

They wanted a relief from oppression.

True oppression and real oppression.

The oppression they were seeking relief from was an oppression being brought on by man, some of it disguised with religious overtones.

But this oppression was only an oppression that was the out working of true oppression, sin.

Jesus didn’t want these women to cry for Him because He was going to the cross to abolish the oppression of sin.

The problem is in His abolishment of sin or at least the means of His abolishing this oppression was going to bring a harsher physical oppression on the land.

For Jesus to die on the cross and to die for the sin of all mankind this means He had to be rejected as the King of the Jews, meaning He had to be rejected by His own people.

Now this doesn’t mean God has cut Israel off it only means that in this time we find the church which is a combination of Isreal and the Gentiles.

Keep in mind it was not only Isreal who rejected Jesus it was the Gentile rulers as well, being in a sense representatives for the rest of humanity reject Jesus.

This rejection of Jesus by the Isrealites has caused a rift to happen.

Their rejection of Jesus causes judgment.

Their is a punishment that is coming on the nation for its rejection of their righteous and perfect King.

There rejection of their God once again.

If you recall God set up Isreal is a theocracy, God being King.

In 1 Samuel the people cried out to the prophet Samuel that they wanted a King like all the other nations.

So God provided them with a human king but not without warning them this human kind was going to take their land, their animals, their daughters.

God as King, always provides perfectly, man as king takes for himself.

The nation rejected God as King, and they continued to reject God even with a king to the point were God banished them into exile in Babylon.

The temple was destroyed and God’s glory left the earth.

God, however, is merciful and faithful and He kept a remnant, after 70 years in exile God sent His people back to Isreal and they rebuilt the temple.

Not to its former glory but it was rebuilt never-the-less.

This is the temple Jesus had been teaching and preaching in.

There is punishment that comes from rejecting God, it is manifested in the physical world against Isreal, from having wicked oppressive kings to wicked oppressive spiritual leaders.

Now as they are rejecting Jesus and are sending Him to the cross the women should not be weeping for Him but they need to weep for what is about to happen to the nation.

Judgment is coming and they should Weep for a Sever Judgment;

Weep for a Severe Judgment

As we continue reading verses 29 and 30, Jesus paints the picture of the severity of the Judgment that is about to come.

Look with me at verses 29 and 30; Jesus continues, “ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’

30 “Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US.’”

He is telling them very days are coming, days when people will say it is better for a woman to be barren or for a woman to not have had any children at all.

This is a very intense statement.

If you understand the Jewish culture you would know that being barren is not a blessing, it is a stigma, it is actual viewed as a punishment from God because of wickedness.

For Jesus to turn and tell them a day is coming when being barren is viewed as a blessing and not a curse is a big deal.

It will be a harsh and difficult time.

In fact as Jesus continues in His prophetic statement here we find that people will be begging for death.

That is the gist of the quote, ‘Say to the mountains fall on us and to the hills cover us.’

The times will be so bad they will beg for death.

Many commentators believe Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple during the Jewish revolt of 70 A.D. which it is very possible.

I believe the destruction of the temple had a lot to do with Israel’s rejection of their Messiah.

It also has a lot to do with God’s providential plan to bring about the consummation of all things.

I am sure the destruction of the temple for the second time was very devastating to the nation of Israel.

It is possible that they could have seen this as the end for them and wished they were dead.

Still even though I believe Jesus was seeing this and a part of this prophecy came true I also believe there is a more severe Judgment coming which Jesus is pointing to.

Two severe Judgments that are coming.

The first is the physical Judgment that will come during the time of the tribulation.

During this time there will be 3 1/2 years of peace, then after the leader of the world suffers a head wound he will be possessed by the antichrist and it will literally become 3 1/2 years of hell on earth.

This will be a more severe judgment where people will actually beg to die because of the severity of it.

In fact this tribulation is marked by a peace treaty signed by Israel and their enemies and they will rebuild their temple on the temple mount.

This will also be a time for Isreal to turn to God before His wrath is fully poured out on them.

That is why the church will not go through the tribulation because God’s wrath has already been poured out on Jesus and the Church is the Bride of Christ it is for those who have accepted His forgiveness for their sins.

They will be raptured and they will not go through the great and terrible tribulation.

This severe judgment comes on the nation and the world for rejecting Jesus.

It is a physical punishment but the serve judgment that should scare everyone and should motivate true Christ followers to give the gospel is the judgment that will happen at the end of the age when all will stand before the throne of the Great Judge Jesus Christ and answer for their rejection of Him as King.

Those who have placed their faith in Him and who follow after Him in this life don’t have to worry about being judged in this way, God’s wrath for those who trust in Jesus has been taken by Jesus.

This doesn’t mean you can go on sinning but it does mean we have a High Priest who is seated at God’s right hand and we can confess our sins to Him.

When the Spirit convicts you of sin don’t fight Him off or fight off Jesus, confess it and mortify it and move on.

Now for those who don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they will stand in judgment before Jesus.

Their lives will be called into account, and their sin will be judged and they will not enter into heaven but instead be thrown into the lake of fire.

Separated from God for all eternity.

It will not be a party, it will be a living torture for all eternity, there will be no light, because the One who is light will no longer be before you.