Sermon Central
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Pleading For The Perishing Cities
Contributed by Meshak Dayanand on Jan 19, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Jesus is looking for people to stand in the gap, who will go for him, let us pray for the Lord of the harvest, that the harvest is ready and plenty but the labourers are few
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
41. He beheld the city] The Temple was at that time magnificent with gilding and white marble, which flashed resplendently in the spring sunlight and the city was very unlike the crumbling and squalid city of to-day. But that “mass of gold and snow” woke no pride in the Saviour’s heart. Few scenes are more striking than this burst of anguish in the very midst of the exulting procession.
It was a very different view of what the traveller of the present day would see from the same spot. Though Jerusalem, when Jesus Christ was teaching on earth, was subject to the stranger Herodian, and the Herodian to the great Italian power, yet the beauty and glory of the city were remarkable. Still glittered amid the great city that "mass of gold and snow" as the temple. The far-extending suburbs were covered with the gardens and palaces of the wealthy Jews. But the mighty memories which hung so thickly round the sacred city and the glorious house of God after all constituted it destroyed charm. What might not that city have been! what splendid and far-reaching work might it not have done l and now the cup of its was just brimming over; only a few more short years and a silence the most awful would brood over shapeless ruins of what was once Jerusalem and her house on Zion, the joy of the whole earth.
Wept over it] Not merely edakrusen ‘shed silent tears’ as at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35) but eklaasen ‘wept aloud;’ and that although not all the agonies and insults of four days later could wring from Him one tear or sigh.
Jesus wept over the Jerusalem city as in a few days it would be destroyed. This weeping was not the same as the weeping over Lazarus' death, that was silent weeping but this was a loud weeping as though you lost someone you lost.
Jesus had all the reasons in the world to rebuke and to destroy the city but instead, He was crying for it. Today we may have any or many reasons to hate any city or the nation but they will never be as worst as this city Jerusalem. How much are you troubled within yourself by seeing the cities destroyed, nations being destroyed, when is the last time you have pleaded for nation India, o God have mercy on my nation when is the last you cried for Goa, O God it's my state, I am born here these are my people, I don't want to see them in eternal fire.
Abraham plead for the city
[22]Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.
[23]And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
[24]Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it?
[25]Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
[26]So the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
[27]Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken, and upon myself to speak to the Lord:
[28]Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?” So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it. ”
[29]And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?” So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”
[30]Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?” So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
[31]And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?” So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”
