The first in a series of awakening sermons preached by Dr. Waldrip during special Friday night services before summer camp. 

“JESUS WEEPING FOR SINNERS”

Luke 19.41 

INTRODUCTION:

1.   Please turn in your Bible to Luke 19.41.  Some comments while you are finding that verse.

2.   There are three times in the Bible that we are told Jesus wept.

3.   The first time Jesus wept was in John 11.35, when He asked where Lazarus’ body was buried.

4.   The third time Jesus wept was in the garden of Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion, and is mentioned in Hebrews 5.7.

5.   The verse that we are about to read is the record of the second time in the Bible that Jesus wept, and it was on the occasion of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

6.   Picture the scene.  Jesus was riding on the foal of an ass, a young donkey.  Palm branches and clothes were laid in front of His path as the donkey colt was led along.

7.   As He crested the Mount of Olives multitudes of people rejoiced and cried out, “Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

8.   It was such a rousing scene that “some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.  And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”  No wonder Bible teachers label this the Lord Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry. 

9.   But when He cleared the top of the Mount of Olives and saw the city spread out before Him . . . .  And this is where we look to our text for this evening, Luke 19.41:  “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

10. I want to rehearse to you in the next few minutes why Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, and I want to rehearse to you why you, too, are wept over. 

1A.   First, JESUS WEPT BECAUSE HE KNEW WHY THOSE SINNERS WOULD PERISH

1B.    It was ignorance, willful ignorance.  He said, in verse 42, “If thou hadst known.”  The people of Jerusalem knew so much, but they didn’t know Jesus.  And they didn’t know what they didn’t know.  And the Lord Jesus knew that they would refuse to know, because “He knew what was in man.”

2B.    Sinners become complacent and think they’re okay.  Those people didn’t know they were lost.  They didn’t know they were dead in trespasses and sins.  They didn’t know they were helpless.  They didn’t know they were hopeless.  They didn’t know they were headed for a Devil’s Hell.  They didn’t know that their only salvation was the Lord Jesus Christ.

3B.    Because they didn’t know, and because they wouldn’t know, because they refused to know, Jesus wept for them.  Is it needful that someone weep for you?  Will you perish as they perished?  Will you refuse to know Jesus as they refused to know Jesus? 

2A.   Next, HE WEPT AT THE THOUGHT OF WHAT THOSE SINNERS HAD LOST

1B.    He said in the next verse “the things which belong unto thy peace!”  Remember that the word “salem” means “peace.”  The word “Jerusalem” means “foundation of peace.”  So the true “foundation of peace” is riding into the city named “foundation of peace,” knowing that they will reject Him.

2B.    This city which had known so little peace, which had been destroyed by her enemies and which would be destroyed yet again by the Romans, was about to throw away her only hope of peace.

3B.    So, Jesus, the Prince of peace, wept for what they might have had, wept for what they would never know but what they might have had, had they only embraced instead of rejected this One now entering the city.  He knew that in less than a week’s time they would crucify Him, and He wept.  Not for Himself, but for the sinners who refused Him.

4B.    Will you forfeit your chance of peace by rejecting the Savior?  Will you refuse the Prince of peace?  What a great sin it is to reject the Lord Jesus.  Will you continue to commit that terrible sin? 

3A.   IN ADDITION TO WEEPING FOR WHAT WAS LOST, HE WEPT FOR WHO WAS LOST

1B.    As His tear-filled eyes swept over the city the Lord Jesus Christ saw the city for what it was.  A city?  Yes.  But what is a city but people, individuals, men and women, boys and girls?  In verse 44 He refers to the city, using the words “thee” and “thy children within thee.”

2B.    The Lord Jesus Christ preached to the multitudes.  He fed the multitudes.  He ministered to the multitudes.  But He never lost sight of the fact that the multitudes are individual people who have individual needs and who need an individual Savior.  He saw them as individuals.  He loved them individually.  And His heart was broken over their individual condemnation.

3B.    Likewise, Jesus looks down from heaven on you, an individual.  You are not some mass of humanity to Him.  He should not be some indistinct fuzzy something to you.  As He looked upon them with a heart’s desire, so He looks upon you with a heart’s desire.  Will you be wept for because you refuse to come to Jesus?  Or will the Savior’s heart rejoice as you believe in your heart unto righteousness? 

4A.   Fourth, HE WEPT OVER THEIR NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITY

1B.    In Genesis 6.4, God said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.”  They had been warned by Enoch and by Noah.  Then the opportunity to respond to Noah’s preaching passed, and the Flood swept over them and they all died, except for Noah and his family.  Neglected opportunity resulted in ruination for millions.

2B.    In Revelation 2.21 we read the Lord Jesus’ words about a woman in Thyatira:  Jesus said, “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”  In this case neglected opportunity resulted in ruination for one.  Though God deals with many, He always deals with the many by dealing with the one.  And God would deal with you.

3B.    In our text, as Jesus wept over those sinners, He knew that their opportunity to be saved would be neglected, as so many had neglected before and as so many would neglect afterwards the opportunity to be saved from their sins.  What will you do with your opportunity to be saved from your sins?  Tears are being shed for your sins.  Will you come to Jesus so our tears can be turned to rejoicing?  Or will you reject Him still? 

5A.   Fifth, THE SAVIOR WEPT OVER THEIR BLINDNESS

1B.    Verse 42 ends, “but now they are hid from thine eyes.”  They had refused to see, and they had refused to see, so God blinded them.  And that’s what had happened before.  Remember Pharaoh.  He hardened his heart, and then he hardened his heart, and then God hardened his heart.

2B.    God will have the last say in the matter.  God will always have the last say.  Will you refuse to see and then refuse to see?  God will blind you so that you cannot see.  Will you refuse to hear and then refuse to hear?  God will make you deaf to the truth.  Will you harden your heart and then harden your heart again?  God will make your heart hard to the truth.

3B.    Does a man not want to retain God in his knowledge?  Will he suppress the truth of God and refuse to obey God?  After a time God will give him over to a reprobate mind, Romans 1.28.  Jesus wept over their blindness, their blindness of refusal and their blindness of reprobation.  Their opportunity was past, and they would be left as blind men groping to find their way and not finding it.

4B.    What about you?  Jesus wept over their blindness.  What had begun as the god of this world blinding the minds of them which believe not became a blindness of God’s judgment for their refusal to see what they could have seen.  Thus, blinded now by God, there was no hope for them.  Will that happen to you?  Will you in your blindness refuse to see?  Will you be brought to judgment so that you cannot see?  Will you then be blind forever to the truth which you might have seen? 

6A.   Finally, MY LORD JESUS CRIED BECAUSE OF THEIR DESTINY

1B.    Oh, the tragedy.  Oh, the heartache.  Man, who had been created in God’s image and after God’s likeness for communion with God, is alienated from God by his sin.  And now, these people, who had every advantage imaginable, but who knew not the time of their visitation, would be lost forever.

2B.    Think of it.  To them had been committed the oracles of God.  To them had been made the covenants of promise.  To them had been given the prophets.  Through them God had sent His beloved Son. 

3B.    Yet because they rejected His Son they were also rejecting their God, and because they rejected God’s Son they would have no other means of being reconciled to God and having their sins forgiven.  The result for them could only be Hell.  That’s why Jesus wept.

4B.    God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  And as Jesus wept for the people in Jerusalem, so He would weep for you.  Why?  Because you refuse Him.  Because you reject Him.  Because you will not come to Him.  

CONCLUSION:

1.   My friends, you have seen the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ, His great love for sinners, His broken heart for those who would not be saved, and why.  I want to close this evening by showing you how you are like those sinners over whom Jesus wept, and for the same reason.

2.   As He rode over the top of the Mount of Olives and looked out over the city He knew the vast majority of those in the city would reject Him, just as most of those in this city will reject Him.  They had opportunities, and you have opportunities.  But they preferred their sin.

3.   Will you prefer your sin?  Will you refuse to come to Christ?  Will you miss your opportunity to be converted?  Will you say, as Felix once said to the apostle Paul, “when I have a convenient season”?

4.   What will become of you?  I want see you come to Christ.  I want you to be converted, as does Dr. Hymers.  Follow the we give you, do what God’s Word says to do, come to Jesus Christ, and He will save you from your sins and you will become a child of God.