About three more weeks before Easter coming out next month. So it is a very appropriate time. I want to talk about one major statement that’s so powerfully uttered from the lips of Jesus that that really just. The consolidated a lot of thoughts in Christianity and the Christian should really take heed of what he said in this statement in : Luke 23: 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
They led Jesus away and seized Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross behind Jesus who was badly whipped, wounded, dripping with blood and too weak to carry the cross. And verse 27 they that followed him was a great multitude of the people and women were mourning and lamenting for him.
Jesus said daughters of Jerusalem. “Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” When I read that, I just like choked. And you know what? When he said that he was actually bleeding badly on his hair forehead. The thorns was already pierced into his skull and he was whipped so badly. Literally there were just a body with the marks of the whips and blood just flowing from her body from his body. And then he had to carry the cross but Simon of Cyrene helped him to carry the cross. And you know, and its like public parade, public shame and people, great multitude of people followed him, crying and mourning for him.
And people were just totally confused about this man whom they thought was the Messiah who’s going to redeem Israel and set Israel from the bondage of Rome. He raised the dead even walked on stormy water, and opened the eyes of the blind, raised the crippled cleansed the leprous. What else he can do; you know he will. He calmed the storm. He rebuked the winds. Everything he did was supernatural. He fed 5000 thousand 15,000 men and women with two fish and five loaves of bread just like that. And his speech was full of authority and grace.
This man, Jesus Christ, was full of truth and grace, and people loved him and he loved little children. He said, let the children come to me with the Kingdom of God belongs to people like the little children. He said that unless you become a little children, you can’t enter the Kingdom of God. I mean, listen to this man. Oh graceful words were falling out of his mouth, you know, and he’s teaching us. On the Kingdom of God , he said that the smallest seed eventually become the biggest tree you know. Kingdom of God is always the antidote antithesis to what is perceived strong.
Strong in the world, and he is the man, he said, daughters, and don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Why?
29 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.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
OK, now this is substantially this is a Jesus is actually quoting old Testament Hosea, saying, this is the time God’s judging the idolatrous Israel to the point that it was judgment so bad that people were crying out to the mountains, “fall upon us, fall upon us”, we can’t take this. This judgment from God is too severe, it’s just they rather just die now.
You know there’s a such horrific so I want to bring a couple of things here number one the end time judgment is going to be so horrific for those people without God who rejected God, rejected the divinity of Christ and rejected his redemption. Is he saying as a Messiah, the savior of the world? I mean, the judgment is going to be absolutely one heck of a horrific incident, the last forever and ever.
The judgement got so strong because the grace of God is so strong. Do you see the contrast? God is not just to pour on such great rough on the day of judgement, if he had not already poured us such great grace on the cross. Because of such horrific wrath coming, Jesus was prepared to die a horrific death for the sake of saving us and opening up an opportunity for us. But many people rejected him today. But many people have received him. The call is yours, the core is ours. There’s not going to be like sort of. I tried. I don’t want it, you know? You just have to believe and trust in him. OK, this first is horrific judgement and wrath of God coming.
The second thing is: When Jesus says, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep for yourself”, you know who is He speaking. This is God-Man.
Because he sees what’s coming. What is happening to him now is nothing compared to what is coming. In the eschatological age, when the end time comes. Is going to be 1000 * 1,000,000 times more horrific than what you see on the cross. And but even what Jesus experienced on the cross is already absolutely horrendous and horrific to any sane person. The crucifixion could have caused any man to be insane and died on the spot, or somebody excruciating pain.
But for Jesus, he was willing to suck it up, endured the deep pain, anguish, shame. Don’t weep for me. It’s like transforming. I believe that he was able to suck it up and turned around, said, “Don’t weep for me, weep for yourselves”. He looks for no pity. In front of his shows his compassion to other people, to us, even at the point of death! This is literally hours before his death. He was already half dead. Physically, he was just drenched. Emotionally drenched. Publicly shamed with saliva on his body, blood all over his body, the shame and pain. He went through, he could take that. It is amazing. I don’t think anybody with any normal human ability will be able to take it. Its astounding, its beyond human capacity. You can’t say he’s God at that moment because God doesn’t suffer this way. He’s fully man. So I’m just saying that he sees the glorious future. He’s going to go through it. Don’t weep for me. Don’t cry. Almost reminds me of the song don’t cry for me Argentina. Don’t cry for me. Don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves.
Number 3: people must see which is the real number deal: Jesus is saying: You see what is horrific, but what you don’t see is the horrific, even much more horrific things on yourselves.
If you don’t repent and put your trust in what I’m doing now on the cross for you? Under the shame & death?
No more. Three days later, back to normal and back to health. Back to fully human and fully God again, as usual, he’s still fully God. And in three day’s time he’s human and came back to life. And that he’s going to proclaim the Gospel, empower his disciples and then go back to heaven. He said that’s what happened. Three more days, “Give me three more days, it shall be done.” Hallelujah. That’s why Jesus told the messenger who informed Jesus that Herod wanted to arrest him and kill him, “Go and tell that fox to destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” This precisely what it means. He is speaking by himself. He is the temple. Three more days. Don’t weep for me. Weep for yourself, folks. Amen.
“We need great scholars—but a thousandfold greater need is a multitude of preachers, not professors. Preachers who know the English Bible, and who scorn not simple folk—who know how to get down off the theological and scholastic stilts, and preach with heart-power to plain people, a simple, old-time gospel.”—–B.H. Carroll, “Opening Address” (1905)
These words resonated with me and hit me hard. I started seminary school late unlike most of my classmates. Thank God I have developed a passion in studying theology, especially those I enjoyed tremendously like Pauline Theology, History of Christianity I & II, Intro Pastoral and Reformed theology, Christology etc., p/s definitely not Hebrew and Greek sorry. And during the course of my 5+ years now in Seminary, having done 80 credit hours, some of my classmates have already graduated with MABS (MA Biblical Studies, 66 credit hours) in NYC, while I stuck out my neck for my love of theology and practical/applied ministry, dived into hybrid MDiv Orlando RTS. RTS is one of the few seminaries in the country that insists on 100+ credit hours for MDiv. I have to salute RTS for that for making a standard of what Dr Ligon Duncan said “Pastors need more theology, not less.”I certainly pray, and hope that this extra of 40 credit hours to get to MDiv from MABS will bear much better and more fruit in the ministry that follows.
Southwestern Baptist Theological seminary, or Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, requires 88 credit hours to get an MDiv. Go figure. In RTS, I will still need a whopping 26 credit hours (on top of my 80 hours) to get my MDiv. And coming from a background of church planting in Malaysia and schooling in the UK, and now working and studying pastorally in the US, I constantly try to find a place where I can land my feet and my ministry. Sometimes I look with envy the professors with the PhD’s lecturing and teaching without the pastoral concern. That’s why this line is powerful and encouraging to me.
“We need great scholars—but a thousandfold greater need is a multitude of preachers, not professors
We need scholars, 1000 greater need for a multitude of preachers not professors according to Dr BH Carroll. He’s saying that we need a multitude more preachers who know how to get down off the theological and scholastic stilts, and preach with heart power to plain people a simple old gospel. Now it is good to hear that, what he saying is that we need theologically and scholastically trained pastors to preach the gospel message with heart power of the Holy Spirit obviously. He is not saying that you don’t need theology to be a preacher of the word of God, because he said “Get off your theology stilts so that you can come down to the real world and preach to the real world, people without theological jargons and thinking at the high level. What he is saying is not to fail to carry the theological words package into the real world, in other words to be able to intersect theology with real life or everyday life today. On the other hand there are many pastors and preachers today are not theologically trained, but with just good heart to preach the gospel and make disciples. While in the reformed world in particular we have a lot of training of credit hours upon credit hours of theological training, however many still stay with the stilts of theology and not coming down to the real world. That’s what BH Carroll said.
We ought to preach with heart passion in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit
I’m so encouraged that we need both, we need theology and also translate that to everyday life. But not only the ability to translate to the everyday life, but also be able to preach with good heart to preach the gospel and make disciples.
I certainly want to add to what he said, indeed we ought to preach with heart passion in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. You know well trained theology does not necessarily translate to well passionate heartfelt preaching. That’s where the heart passion that’s only ignited by the Holy Spirit will do the job. However to get that heart ignition by the Holy Spirit, we need that theology and the reflection of the word of God in our hearts and souls so that this can be translated into heart passion preaching.
You have seen sometimes how well trained students preaching, you can see how their sermons are well arranged, chronologically arranged, theologically sound, however it just sounds a little rigid and a lack of life. Coming from a charismatic church planting movement background myself without much theological training albeit planted a few churches, preaching with the hot passion of the power of the Holy Spirit is everything we want from the Holy Spirit.
I do sense that the Baptist seems to have a greater passion to reach the lost and make disciples, with a more evangelical outlook, compared to many churches in the Reformed world. I I’ve seen so many great books and articles written in the Gospel coalition, the First Thing, that were mostly written by pastors and scholars related to reformed theological training especially those from the Baptist and southwest Baptist theological seminaries and some from Reformed theological seminaries, however that passion to reach the lost is not tangibly felt in the like of exhorting the congregation and audience to be soul winners passionately.
The sermon by Dr Malcom Yarnell III of SWBT on the founders day in SWB TS just a couple of days ago carries that unction of the passion of soul winning Baptist is clearly palpable.
He’s preaching for nothing less than revival in the Founders day called “Soul winning Evangelical Baptists.” The passion that came forth from a professor with such Christ centered theology solidly backing him up is astonishingly refreshing. He captured some of the keywords that I loved my ministry like Spirit filled, Christ centered, revivalist passion outreach.
On the way to the cross, Jesus was bleeding badly and suffered so much of the hands of the Roman soldiers. After all those whips and mockery and spit, there was a huge multitude of men and women following him. The woman were mourning for him.
Luke 23:28–29 (ESV)
28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 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!’
The pain carried by the loved ones and followers of Christ following Christ to the cross
You can imagine the scene seeing the greatest man on earth who saved you from sickness, demonstrated signs, who did signs and wonders of miracles before you, and spoke most gracious, beautiful words, full of truth and grace, and now, completely drenched in blood in a despicable sight. It’s beyond comprehension! Unbelievable! It’s a sight that evokes deep emotions of outcry, a deep cry of anguish to God. “Why, Lord? What happened?”
I can just imagine the mother of Jesus the human mother on earth, Mary, was weeping and crying all the way to Golgotha, following Jesus, her own precious son. It is in those moments that its almost like darkness descended on earth. It’s like emotionally the world has come to an end as they come to such tragic, unexpected and much beloved son.
At that moment, in the minds of those who believed in Christ, who loved Christ, who has been loved by Christ, and touched by Christ, and taught by Christ, it was a totally devastating moment to walk to Jesus cross, and funeral.
To witness the glorious one, the Son of God, the promised Messiah to end up in such a state, it’s just beyond words, simply unbelievable and it’s totally disappointing & heart breaking.
And it is at that moment of time, Jesus turned around and said to the women, “Luke 23:28–29
28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 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!’
“blessed are those who are the barren ones, who never breast nursed a baby because the doom day is a judgment coming just going to be so severe that you’re going to cry out of the mountains, fallen spirit cry for yourself, weep for yourselves in which children. 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?
Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves and your children
In reality it is actually out of this world. The fact that son of God himself would be crucified on the cross drenched in blood, it’s out of this world. And Jesus give a sober warning to the women weeping for him. Do you know you would’ve thought that this is the time to show appreciation and love towards the women who throughout the expression, the emotions, weeping and crying for the one they loved, but Jesus said to them “weep not for me daughters of Jerusalem, weep for yourselves And your children.” This may sound harsh, but it actually carries the absolute truth. What you see now is a death that will be resurrected in three days and they will bring the glory of God.
You’ll see my glory
That’s what Jesus go to tell them essentially don’t weep for him. The world of darkness has no power over him. The prince of darkness has not won. In fact, Satan, the devil will be defeated when he dies on the cross and resurrected from death conquering over death, defeating the devil. So it is great news. Therefore all daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourself and the children.
If you do not believe in Christ suffered so much, agonizing and anguish on the cross, you should be weeping for yourselves. If your children don’t appreciate what Christ has done on the cross, in anguish and sufferings for them and for us, they should be weeping for themselves to
He changed the world, the entire cosmos, forever and ever
It is just simply incredible then, the depth of emotions so profound that came off of the lips of Jesus at such moment, highly emotional, highly charged, highly stated with expectation, and the entire profundity of it, He changed the world, the entire cosmos, forever and ever.
The cross changed everything in this world decidedly. There’s no turning back. He has risen. Hallelujah Jesus has risen from the dead. That’s our only hope for all eternity.
Al Ngu sermons & devotion 