“SAVING THE UNDESERVING”
LUKE 13:34-35

I. Introduction
“Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!” Surely it is one of the greatest hymns ever penned by man. Reginald Heber, an Anglican bishop, wrote fifty-seven hymns, but this one, “Holy, Holy, Holy!” written in honor of the Trinity, stands out as the most well-known and loved of them all. He took the words directly from Revelation 4:8 where they are repeated again and again by the angels who minister around the throne of God.

To appreciate the majesty of the words, we need to know what they mean in the original Greek.

• “Holy” is “hagiŏs.” It means “sacred, set apart, pure, and undefiled.”

• “Lord” is “Kuriŏs.” It is the equivalent of the Hebrew “Adonai.” It speaks of God’s supreme and absolute authority over His creation.

• “God” is “Thĕŏs.” It is the equivalent of the Hebrew “Elohim,” It speaks of God’s power, strength, and sovereignty.

• “Almighty” is “pantŏkratōr.” While not a direct translation, it is roughly equal to the Hebrew “El Shaddai,” and speaks of God’s rule and omnipotence.

I wanted us to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy!” this morning as a reminder of who and what God is as we look at just two verses in our ongoing study of Luke’s gospel. These four words – “Holy, Lord, God, Almighty” – speak volumes about the One who has saved us. He is pure, He is undefiled, He is supreme, He is sovereign, and He is the all-powerful author-ity and ruler over His creation.

In Luke 13:34-35 we will come face-to-face with one of the most debated subjects of conflict and confusion found in the Scriptures – the tension between the sovereignty of God and the will of man in salvation. But before we go there we need to set the stage by looking at two passages of Scripture that speak to who and what God is.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts (higher) than your thoughts.”

So you and I should never be surprised when the wisdom of the world and our human intelligence fail to comprehend how God thinks and what He does. But you can trust in this: God will always do what is right, and in the end, He will always glorify Himself.

The second passage that will help us set the stage for Luke 13:34-35 is the Apostle Paul’s closing statement to his doctrinal treatise in Romans. He has taken the first eleven chap-ters to explain the entire doctrine of salvation, the whole gospel, if you will.
And after the Holy Spirit has given him the words and he has written them down, he looks back and finds himself stunned and amazed at God’s awesome truth. He says…
*Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has became His coun-selor?
35 Or who has first given to Him (to God) that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

So our God will do what He will do. We won’t understand it all. We may understand only a little of it, but that’s all right, because God will accomplish His plan and purpose.
• He doesn’t need our help – only our obedience.
• He doesn’t call for our approval – only our worship.
• He doesn’t hold us responsible for what we cannot know or comprehend – only for what His Spirit has revealed to us in His written Word…and He has revealed much.

With all of that firmly in mind, let’s look back to see what has led up to today’s text.
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II. Review
In Luke 13:22-30 Jesus was teaching the hard truth that most people who think they are saved are not. He was speaking to multitudes of religious people when He told them that both the way to God’s kingdom and the gate that led into it was narrow, and only a few would find it. More than that, Jesus said that those who did find it would struggle to en-ter into eternal life because once they had found it, their life in this world would not become easier. On the contrary, it would become harder.

If you’ve ever told a religious person their religion could not save them, or if you’ve ever told a person they are mistaken if they think their good works will open heaven’s gates for them, then you’ve learned something of the struggle Jesus was talking about.

Last time, in Luke 13:31-33, we saw the results of Jesus’ teaching on that subject. He was warned to flee for His life, because Herod wanted to kill Him. Jesus’ response spoke of His sovereign control. He said that He would accomplish His eternal purpose, and no one and no thing could stop Him. He would die at the right time, not a moment before, and in the process, He would redeem God’s chosen ones. And He would display God’s compassion for the lost and His power to save. And that leads us to this morning’s text.
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III. Text
The Son of God has come to the earth to save God’s chosen people. But they don’t think they need Him. They think their religion and good works will save them.
After all, they are God’s chosen nation. Why do they need Him to save them? Who does He think He is, God?

As Jesus’ time on earth draws to a close, it has become clear that most of His own people will reject Him and His offer of salvation and eternal life in the kingdom of God. But because of His great love and compassion for God’s chosen people, He laments over Jerusalem. He speaks of the Jews’ rejection of their own Messiah, and because of that rejection, He pronounces judgment over the city, the nation, and the people He loves.
*Luke 13:34-35 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
35 “Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’”

Just as God’s wrath and the judgment to come is based on His sovereignty and absolute holiness, so too is His love and compassion for a lost and dying world. When we empha-size one over the other, we fall into the trap of presenting an incomplete, and therefore incorrect picture of God. John 3:16, as wonderful and marvelous a truth as it is, presents only a part of the truth. It speaks of God’s love and compassion, but we must read further.
*John 3:16-17
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.”

Saved from what? Saved from the wrath and judgment to come!
*John 3:18-19
18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil.”

All who do not believe in Jesus, all who, because of that unbelief, reject His offer of sal-vation, will be judged. John 3:18 says they are “judged already.”

Here at LBC we strongly affirm God’s sovereignty in the doctrine of election: His holy and absolute right to choose those whom He will save and those whom He will not. It is His right to dispense His mercy solely as He desires.
*Romans 9:15-18
15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose, I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”
18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

God does what He wants to do, and what He wants to do is right. It is no more complica-ted than that. He dispenses His mercy on whom He chooses, and He is right when He does so. He dispenses His compassion on whom He chooses, and He is right when He does so. But He also hardens the hearts of whom He chooses, and He is right when does that as well. We can wring our hands over it, we can rail against it, and we can spend our lives trying to make the Scriptures teach something else, but we cannot change it.

If God is absolutely holy and sovereign when He chooses whom He will save, then He is also absolutely holy and sovereign when He chooses whom He will not save. It is fool- hardy for us to try to “outthink” God in this. Truth is truth – whether or not men like it, understand it, or accept it. Truth is what the Bible teaches. But having said all of that, someone will again quote from John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” Yes, He did, but for what purpose, and for whose benefit?
“… that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

God loves His creation, He loves the whole world and everyone in it. He has compassion on all, even those who will reject Him and His offer of salvation.
Ezekiel 33:11
11 “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the LORD God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?”

Yes, God has love and compassion for the whole world, but most of the people of the world will harden their hearts, reject His love and compassion, and will ultimately be lost, judged, and perish. But God has a special love for His own, whether they are OT saints, the church, or those who will finally come to saving faith during the Tribulation.
John 13:1 (just before Jesus went to the cross)
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. (“end” is “tĕlŏs,” to the limit, to the uttermost, to total and complete perfection)

Listen, in John 3:16 Jesus loves everyone, but He does not love everyone “to the end.” If He did, no one would ever be lost.
But God chose His own. He predestined them to salvation, He called them, He justified them, He saved them, and He will glorify them. Yes, He loves the world, He even loves and has compassion for those who hate Him and reject Him. But He saves His own!

And so, in Luke 13:34, Jesus expresses His love and compassion for Israel. He laments over their rejection of His love and compassion, and He says so.
*Luke 13:34
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!

This verse makes Jesus’ grief over those who reject Him so clear, doesn’t it? Speaking to the nation that’s in the process of rejecting Him, He expresses His longing to save them from the wrath to come. But just as Pharaoh hardened his heart in Moses’ day, Israel is hardening its heart in Jesus’ day.

Later, just five days before His crucifixion, Jesus is overcome by emotion as He looks upon Jerusalem. He knows that the city will be destroyed by the Romans, and He knows that for the next two thousand years the Jewish people will be persecuted and scattered over the face of the earth, only to return in the last days before His Second Coming.
*Luke 19:41-44
41 And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it,
42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.
43 “For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side,
44 and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

In Luke 13:34 Jesus says “Jerusalem” twice. Such repetition is common in Scripture when strong emotions are being expressed. When David heard of his son’s death he said, “O my son Absolom, my son, my son Absolom! Would I had died instead of you. O Abso-lom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33)

Jesus says that Jerusalem “…kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.” This has never ceased. The people of Jerusalem were still killing God’s prophets. Soon they would kill Jesus. Then they would continue to kill those sent to them in the future. The people of Jerusalem would sooner kill God’s messengers than receive God’s Word.

In Acts 8 they stoned Stephen to death. In Acts 12 Jesus’ half-brother James was mur-dered with swords. And in Acts 26 Paul acknowledged that, before his conversion, he had a hand in the murder of other Christians. Yet here in Luke 13:34 Jesus’ compassion for Jerusalem and all of Israel is deep and intense.
Some Jews, those individuals God has chosen, already know who Jesus is. They have received Him, but most have not, and most will not. Their hearts are hard and as such, the nation as a whole will reject Him. “How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!”

When Paul writes Romans, he quotes Isaiah and speaks of God’s sorrow over Israel’s rejection of their Messiah.
Romans 10:21
21 But as for Israel (God) says, “All day the long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

Ask yourself this: Is Israel’s rejection of Christ two thousand years ago any different than the world’s rejection of Him today? Isn’t the whole world’s refusal to receive God’s message and their subsequent hatred of those who proclaim it, the norm today, just as it was then? We know that being a Christian and proclaiming God’s Word can be a danger-ous thing. How many of God’s people have been martyred for doing nothing more than speaking God’s truths? (back to Luke 13)

In Luke 13:34 we have seen the reality of God’s compassion for the lost of Israel. But there is another reality. John 1:11 says that Jesus had come “…to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” When God’s compassion is rejected, God’s condemnation will follow.
*Luke 13:35
35 “Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’”

The term “your house” is not just a direct reference to the temple, but a symbolic refer-ence to Jerusalem and all of Israel. That desolation would come in 70 A.D. when the Romans would destroy Jerusalem and tear down the temple. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, describes what the Romans did. “Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city…it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.” (Wars of the Jews, VII.1.1)

In 439 A.D Jews in the Eastern Roman Empire were denied legal rights. In the Middle Ages violence against Jews was common because they were seen as enemies of Christ. In the thirteenth century the Jews were expelled from England. In the fourteenth century they were blamed for the Black Death. In the nineteenth century Russian Jews were murdered by the tens of thousands. We all know what was done in Germany in the last century, and today the threat of their final extermination is heard from radical Islam in general and Iran in particular.

But in all of that, God has always kept a remnant of Jewish believers for Himself. The Church of Jesus Christ has never been populated solely by Gentiles. (JFJ)
Galatians 3:28
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In Luke 13:35 Jesus has said that since Israel has rejected Him, they “…shall not see Me again until the time comes when (they) say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” When will Israel say that? They will say that at the Second Coming. Thus we know that Israel has a future. Their rejection is not permanent because God has made promises to them that, by His very holiness, He must keep. And He will. He said…
Deuteronomy 7:6-8a
6 “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peo-ples,
8a but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers…”

When Jesus returns to the earth to destroy the Antichrist and take His rightful place on the throne of David in Jerusalem, every living Jew, every one who has survived the Great Tribulation, will be saved. Why? Because every one of them will repent and believe!
*Zechariah 12:9-10; 13:9b (speaking of the Second Coming)
9 “And it will come about in that day that I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jeru-salem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look upon Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.
13:9b They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

What does the church need to know about all of this?
*Romans 11:25-27
25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
26 and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob (Israel).”
27 “And this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

God is faithful! You may fail Him. I may fail Him. But God is faithful to His Word!
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IV. Conclusion
Today we have taken an abbreviated excursion into what is arguably the most difficult subject in all of Scripture – the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the will of man, and the relationship between God’s choice of the sinner and the sinner’s respon-sibility to believe the gospel, to repent, and to receive Christ. These relationships will inevitably over-tax our powers and abilities to fully comprehend them.

The point is this: God is God and we are not. He alone is worthy of all praise, all honor, and all glory. He has done for every Christian what no one else could do. He has taken you and me – lost and undeserving sinners, completely incapable, and before God’s call on our lives, completely uninterested in knowing Him – and He has given us eternal life. He chose us for the same reason He chose Israel. He wanted to. What more do we need to know? One thing we do know is that in all of it, God will ultimately glorify Himself.

We come to saving faith when we receive Jesus. We think we’ve exercised our own will by choosing God and making a “decision for Christ.” But the reality of the matter is that God has exercised His freewill and made a decision for us. Remember, the Scriptures tell us that we didn’t seek Him.
Romans 3:10-11
10 …as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;
11 there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God…”

But in Matthew 18:11 Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” We didn’t seek Him, but He sought us, found us, saved us, and adopted us into His eternal family.
Romans 8:15-17a
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
16 The (Holy) Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are child-ren of God,
17a and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…

The truth is as plain as it can be. God has chosen to save and have eternal fellowship with some of those whom He has created. If you are a Christian, you are among that number. You have done nothing to earn it. You have no merit by which you can claim to deserve it. The very deepest and most profound thoughts of the wisest men cannot understand why God has done it, but He has. After all, hasn’t He said…

Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts (higher) than your thoughts.”

Let me close with a story. A pastor reserved a block of time each week for discussion and prayer with anyone in his congregation who might be having a spiritual difficulty or trouble understanding something in the Bible.

One day a man came to him and said, “I have great difficulty with Romans 9:13 where God says, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” “Yes,” said the pastor, “there is great difficulty in that verse. But which part of the verse is most difficult for you?” The man said, “The second part, of course. I cannot understand why God should hate Esau.” The pastor replied, “My difficulty has always been with the first part of the verse. I could never understand why God loved Jacob.”

But He did! He chose to do so. And if you’re a Christian, He chose to love you and bestow His mercy on you. Why? He told us. “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” What can you say? You can say this…
*Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?
35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

~ Pray ~