Luke 13:31-34

Pictures of Jesus Christ

Luk 13:31-34

Here, then, is a picture of a threatened man. Jesus Christ was continually being threatened. There seemed every day to be but a hair's-breadth between him and death. He was despised and rejected of men; there was no beauty in him that man should desire his presence. Yet there was something about him which excited the passion, the most terrible vengeance of mankind. He held his life in his hand, in a special and peculiar way. Who was there that did not lift up a hand against him? Who was there not too mean to pucker up his face into a sneer when he saw the Son of God? And who was there not too feeble to suppose that even he could do some damage to the name of the Messiah? What was there, then, to induce Jesus Christ to live upon the earth? The foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests, but the Son of man had not where to lay his head. Why, then, should he not have made short work of it; have turned right round and said, "I leave the dust of my feet behind me as a testimony against you; I have made you an offer of truth and of life and of love, and you have rejected that offer. I leave you now to all the consequences of your obstinacy"? Yet he came to be upon the earth in this very position in which we find him. He knew the kind of hospitality that awaited him; he knew how homeless he would be; how hard would be the pillow on which his weary head was to rest; how unkind the looks that would be waiting for him here and there, on the right hand and on the left. Yet, for our sakes, he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. There was nothing strange in the revelation of this lot which met the Saviour that is to say, there was nothing strange to his mind; he was not startled by the mode of reception that was accorded to him. From the height of heaven he foresaw it; before coming to the earth at all he knew all the courses through which he must of necessity pass. Still, in the face of it all, he came to seek and to save that which was lost. Behold, then, in this text, a picture of a threatened man. There is a sword against thy life; there is a king against thee! Thirty years before Herod the Great had sought the young Child to destroy him; and now, after the lapse of a generation, Herod the Tetrarch sends messages by the Pharisees, that his hand was against him. What a threatened life! What a position of discomfort, of misinterpretation, of utter friendlessness, of sore distress! I want you to look at Jesus Christ in this aspect, and to keep your eyes steadily upon him whilst such messages are being delivered; because it is under such circumstances that we may get some hint of the real quality of his character.

Why did Herod threaten Jesus? Why was the life of Christ a threatened life from the beginning to the end? Because good is always unpalatable to evil. That which is good always torments that which is bad. But had not Herod far greater influence in the world than Jesus Christ? No. But Herod could strike! True, but in doing so his arm would rot Wherein, then, is the superiority of the influence of this threatened man? It is in its goodness. Good men have everything to hope from time; bad men have everything to fear from the lapse of days. Beauty can stand the wear and the tear of life the inward and imperishable beauty of consummate goodness and divine truth. Goodness is a perpetual quantity, all penetrating, all searching, impartial, noble, a comfort in distress, a refuge to the weak, a tower and a defence to all men who wish to be right and to do right. Had it been a case of man against man, position against position, hand against hand, truly Herod would have made short work of this controversy; he would have thrown down his antagonist, set his foot upon him, and with a loud "Ha, ha!" would have declared his triumph. But it was a question of light on the part of Jesus Christ, light against darkness, truth against falsehood, God against the devil. No wonder, therefore, that when the controversy was so vital and so keen Jesus Christ should have been surrounded, if I may so express myself, by an atmosphere of menace, of threatening, of ill-will, and of latent determination to shed his blood. I am anxious to know how Jesus Christ will conduct himself under such circumstances. Herod has pronounced the authoritative word. Kings ought not to be forced to the humiliation of eating up their own messages. When the Tetrarch speaks he ought to have meaning in his speech. It will tell to the disadvantage of Herod if, after all this, he come to humiliation and shame. Some men think they have only to threaten and the earth will quake at once. It would appear that some persons are under the delusion that they have but to shake their finger in the face of the sun, and it will be night presently. Herod sent word to Christ to get out of his jurisdiction, or he would kill him. I am anxious to know how Jesus Christ, without home or friend, will conduct himself under such circumstances. Let us read how he answered the message of Herod the Tetrarch:

"And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected" ( Luk 13:32 ).

Here you have a picture of impotent rage on the part of Herod the Tetrarch. He thought that Jesus Christ would tremble under the message. He instantly treats it with disdain, with noble haughtiness of conscious superiority to the shaft that is levelled against him; and he describes Herod according to the moral traits of his character. He does not hesitate to call Herod a fox; a mere cunning, designing man, only courageous when there is no danger at hand; scheming and plotting in his den, but having no true bravery of heart; an evil-minded person, whose whole character is summed up in the word "fox." What did Jesus Christ, then, call men names? Not in the usual sense of that expression. Did he call Herod a fox out of mere defiance or spite? He was incapable of doing anything of the kind. When Jesus Christ spoke a severe word, the severity came out of the truth of its application. Is it not a harsh thing to call a man a liar? Not if he be false. Is it not very unsocial to describe any man as a hypocrite? Not if he be untrue. Wherein, then, is this wickedness of calling men names? In the misapplication of the epithets. It is wicked to call a man true if we know him to be untrue. There is an immoral courtesy; there is a righteous reproach. We do not use harsh words when we tell men what they really are. On the other hand, it is a matter of infinite delicacy to tell a man what he really is, because, at best, we seldom see more than one aspect of a man's character. If we could see more of the man, probably we should change our opinion of his spirit. In the case of Jesus Christ, however, he saw the inner heart, the real and true quality of the Tetrarch; and, therefore, when he described Herod as a fox, he spoke the word of righteousness and of truth. It was not an epithet; it was a character in a word; it was a man summed up in a syllable. Let us, therefore, be very careful how we follow this example, because we ought to have equal knowledge, before we take an equal position in this respect. On the other hand, let us beware of that simulation of courtesy, which is profoundly untrue, which is despicably immoral the kind of thing which sets itself to catch the favour and the flattery of the passing moment. As men in Christ, we ought to be true with our speech; we ought to study morality of language, and never to say anything merely for the purpose of pleasing or passing through the temporary occasion with something like self-satisfaction. Then Herod's message produced no effect upon the work of the Son of God? Not the slightest in the world. But Herod was a man in authority, "brief authority"! Jesus Christ was the sovereign, and Herod was but the servant of a servant. What then did Jesus Christ profess in the jurisdiction of Herod? To cast out devils and to do cures. It was a moral work upon which he was set. Preachers of the gospel are not to be turned aside by the threatening hand of any man. If any one should, indeed, be doing aught to unsettle the minds of the people in relation to these political things which we hardly understand, he ought to be brought to law and called to order. But whoso is casting out devils and doing cures, here or there, under this form of government or that, let him not heed the king's words, but proceed in the strength of God, and in the sufficiency of divine grace, to do his beneficent work!

We thought that Jesus Christ's labour would be cut short by this message from Herod. Jesus Christ must finish what he has begun. But is it not in the power of the great and the mighty to say to Christ, "You must stop at this point"? It is in their power, truly, to say it, and when they have said it they may have relieved their own feelings; but the great, the beneficent, the redeeming work of the Son of God proceeds as if not a word to the contrary had been said. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed; and behold, their rage came to nothing, and their fury recoiled upon themselves! "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Holy One shall have them in derision." Are we opposing Jesus Christ? Are we in any way setting ourselves against the advancement of his kingdom? It will be an impotent rage. Go and strike the rocks with your fist, perhaps you may batter down the granite with your poor bones. Try! Go and tell the sea that it shall not come beyond a certain line, and perhaps the hoary billows will hear you, and run away and say that they be afraid of such mighty men. Try. You have nothing else to do, you may as well try. But as for keeping back this kingdom of God, this holy and beneficent kingdom of truth, no man can keep it back, and even the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Men may rage; men do rage. Other men adopt another policy; instead of rage and fury and great excitement, they set themselves against the kingdom of God, in an indirect and remote way. But both policies come to the same thing. The raging man who pulls down the wooden Cross and tramples it underfoot, and the man who offers a passive resistance to the progress of the kingdom of heaven, come to the same fate. The light shines on, noontide comes, and God gets his own way in his own universe. Behold, then, this is our glory and our strength and our hope, that none can hinder. In a secondary sense they may retard, they may put stumbling-blocks on the road, and for a moment they may be seeming to succeed; but, in the long run, this kingdom goes on until it has covered the earth with its lustre, and set a universal throne amidst mankind!

"Nevertheless I must walk to-day, and tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem" ( Luk 13:33 ).

Here is a picture of perfect reliance in the divine protection. On the one hand, Herod threatens; on the other, Jesus says, "I must walk to-day, and tomorrow, and the day following." Every man is immortal until his work is done. You cannot injure a hair of a man's head until the work that he is entrusted with be so far fulfilled as to ensure its entire completion. Men should not be soured by the opposition of their enemies. Some of us are prone to be so. When our lives are threatened, when our peace is jeopardised, we are disposed to say, "Then we shall have no more to do with this thing; we shall utterly abandon it; we shall settle down into peace and tranquillity, for we have had enough of vexation and disappointment." It is feeble to say so; it shows the poverty of our nature, if we talk in that way. I know not whose example we may be copying, but I know we are not transcribing the example of the Son of God. He did not resign his functions, he did not decline to go on with his work. He said, "I work in the name of God and for the good of mankind, and I must not be stopped." If we had more of that spirit, we should do more work in the world; we should have fewer resignations of Christian positions, less slinking away from the road of difficulty, and the path of bewilderment, and the course of pain. We should have more steadiness and consistency, not arising from pride and a sense of self-sufficiency, but coming out of the consciousness of a divine call, and an assurance that divine grace is more than sufficient for every occasion. What is the cure for all this willingness to run away from difficulty? The cure is in looking to the Master and not to the servant. We are the servants of God, and therefore the servants of one another. Tell me that I have received my ministry from man, and I shall take one view of the difficulties which may beset it. But tell me that that ministry has been imposed upon me from heaven, and that I am called and elect of God to do a certain work; and whatever may be the impediments round about me, there shall be sunshine in my heart, there shall be deep inexplicable peace in my soul; I shall regard the difficulties of the present occasion as but momentary, and the strength upon which I rest shall be nothing less than the omnipotence of God, Whose servants are we, then? Who has called us to this Christian work? We are called of God, we are not called of man; and we must take our orders from heaven, and not from earth. But Herod threatens. Herod's threatening is but impotent breath! The king shakes his hand. His hand will drop off in the shaking! But our work must go on because we are called of God to do it. What rest this gives a man; what dignity in the midst of vexation and difficulty! What an assurance that all tumult and opposition can be but for a moment! How it assures us that in the long run the kingdom of heaven shall suffer nothing at the hands of mere violence! It is established upon a rock, and it is guaranteed of God. Jesus Christ saw the end from the beginning. In proportion as we have a wide outlook upon things, shall we have peace in our work and assurance of the blessedness of its end. Let us look at nothing in itself alone, or we may be discouraged by it exceedingly. But let us, following the example of Jesus Christ, think of to-day and tomorrow and the day following, and then we shall see how things bear upon one another, how they modify one another, and how what is difficult in detail becomes solved and harmonised in the great result. The Church would be quieter if the Church could see further. How far ought the Church to see? To this law, namely, God is on the throne. Christ has promise of the world, and whatsoever may be the difficulties and perplexities in the meantime, there will be worked out this great result. Are you threatened? Have you difficulty? Is the road very thorny, steep, hazardous? You have nothing to do with these things, except in a very temporary and secondary sense. God has promised to-day and tomorrow, and he has promised that on the third day things shall be perfected. Take him at his word, rest in his love, and as for the resources that are required, they are hidden in God's power!

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" (Luke 13:34 .)

Here is a picture of rejected and wounded love. We have had a picture of a threatened man; we have had a picture of impotent rage; we have had a picture of perfect reliance on the protection of Almighty God. And behold, we have now the most pathetic of the pictures a picture of rejected and wounded love. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not!" Jesus Christ's ministry, then, in this sense, was a failure. There are men amongst us who would not hesitate to say, that Jesus Christ's endeavours to save men had ended in a disastrous disappointment. This indeed is a wail, a cry of failure, an utterance of disappointment it is love in agony! Viewed within a certain limit of time, no ministry has been less successful than was the ministry of the Son of God. No man amongst us ever uttered a cry so heartbreaking as this over the apparent failure of his ministry. Jesus Christ went, with all his power, into some districts, and could not do many mighty works there because of the unbelief of the people. Was his ministry then a failure? Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, he would have gathered the children of the city together, but the children would not be gathered by his love. Was the ministry of Jesus Christ then an ignominious failure? We must not look at things within these limitations. "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." You have striven for the better life of your child, and no good result seems to have blessed your ministry. Do not suppose that you have failed altogether in your efforts. You have been sowing seed; you have been laying up memories; and the time may come when the child will get a right view of all you have done for his welfare. Despair not; hope on. No man can speak a loving word or deliver a wise message, even to a child, without in some sort having his reward either in the approbation of a good conscience, or in seeing the work of the Lord so far prospering in his hand, that his child shall be twice born to him. We speak ignorantly oftentimes when we speak of failures. We only see parts of the case. We want to see everything within the compass of one day. We cannot wait until the day following, and the third day. Oftentimes our impatience betrays us, and we mourn a failure where we ought to see but an ebb in the tide. A man's heart-waves will come again, by-and-by, with still greater force and fuller volume!

The offer of salvation had been made, and the offer of salvation had been rejected. This appears to me to be one of the most astonishing facts' in human life. Given this state of affairs: An assembly of men, and a declaration from heaven that God is willing to save every man in the assembly, and that most of them should refuse to believe the message. Is there any anomaly so great? Is there a state of affairs less likely to secure our belief than that? And yet this is the condition of things. No man is so little believed as is the Word of God. Sometimes we feel wounded because our messages do not produce proper effect. But the heart of Almighty God is continually grieved, because of the rejection of the gospel. Jesus Christ here puts himself into an attitude most pathetic and touching. He says, "I would have gathered you. Why are you not gathered? Not because of any want of opportunity; not because of any deficiency of love on my part, but because of the stubbornness of your own will." After all, whatever metaphysical mysteries there may be about this view of the case, it satisfies the heart and the deepest love of mankind more than any other view. Christ entreating men rejecting; the gospel offered the gospel despised; and the blame coming down in judgment and condemnation upon those who have rejected the truth. I know not of any view of the case which goes so far to satisfy one's present intelligence and sense of right, and consciousness of religious concern for the children of men.

It is so with ourselves. The gospel is offered to us. Jesus Christ comes to every man, comes to us, and says, "I would gather up your life; I have redeemed you. Will you believe it? I have bought you with a price; may I not claim you as my own? I have an answer to your sin, a solution of your difficulty, a comfort for your whole being will you believe it?" It is possible for us to turn round and say to him, No! Then what is the end of all this? The end is that God himself is exhausted. Mercy is the culmination of justice, and when mercy is despised the whole government of God is exhausted, so far as the possibility of human salvation is concerned. What is it that is offered to us then? Is it some great and hard thing that God requires at our hands? Verily not. It is that we, consciously sinful, consciously needy, shall listen to the appeals of his love, and say, We believe those appeals with our whole heart, and we will live by them! That is the true meaning of faith. Not a mere assent of the mind, not a mere indisposition to controvert any statement which is made, but this, I live by; I believe. Reverse the word "believe," and it is live by. It is the rendering up of the life to a certain truth, a governing of the whole being by the spirit of a certain statement. What is that statement? "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." When a man can, with all the love and energy of his heart, lay hold upon this statement, he is a saved man. He is not a learned man, he is not a skilful controversialist, he is not what is generally known as a theologian. But he is a saved man; he has a germ in his heart that means pardon, purity, peace, heaven, rest, service!

Then there is a possibility of saying, as Jerusalem said, "I will not be gathered." What is the consequence of our availing ourselves of that possibility? This:

"Behold your house is left unto you desolate" ( Luk 13:35 ).

Are we to understand, then, from these words, that there is to be a limit to the period of trial which is allotted to mankind in this matter of salvation? Is there but a day of grace? Verily. A day! Then it has an end? Yes. "The sun of grace once set, will rise no more." When is that period of trial? Now. How long will the period of trial last? No man can tell. Shall I be spared another year? No man can promise thee that. Shall I hear another offer of salvation? I dare not say thou wilt. May this be the last time the call of heaven resounds in my ears? Yes. What then? "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." But I am old?

Yet even here is mercy. Even perdition itself is an aspect of the divine mercy. Indiscrimination, as to character, would be unjust. God is merciful in the "depart," as he is merciful in the "come." We shall see it one day. May we never see it from the lower aspect, but from the higher. What then have I to offer to men? This: A present Saviour, a sufficient Redeemer, Jesus Christ, God the Son, willing to gather men. It is a tender word, "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." No, and we can never tell how much it costs the heart of God to say to any man, "Your house is left unto you desolate."