HOW OFTEN I WOULD, BUT YOU WOULD NOT
Matt. 23:37-38
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. Here’s an early Mother’s Day joke. A pastor was talking to a teenage boy; “I want to teach you about a higher power.”
2. The teen answered, “You mean, my Dad?” The pastor laughed, “Haha! No! Much higher than that!”
3. The boy said, “Oh, I know. You’re talking about my MOM!”
B. TEXT
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem...who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate.” Mt. 23:37-38.
C. THESIS
1. This is not and could not be the language of a mere man. It expresses God’s efforts, for many centuries, to persuade the Israelites to do the right thing and walk with Him. He sent the prophets, signs and wonders, and many other warnings. God would often have gathered the Israelites together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but they would not.
2. Tonight we’re going to examine how God deals with us and check out whether we are appropriately responding to Him.
3. The title if this message is, “How Often I Would, But You Would Not.”
I. GOD’S GOAL FOR THOSE WHO COME TO HIM
He gathers us, “as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings.” It’s an amazing thing that God would condescend to compare Himself to a hen! There must be some very important truth He wishes to convey, that He uses such a metaphor. How are God’s actions similar to a hens?
A. TO IMPART LOVE & BLESSING
A hen gathers her chicks to her to love and bless them; God does so to impart good to us. Listen to God’s heart:
1. Jer. 32:40, “I will never stop doing them good.”
2. Deut. 5:29, “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”
3. Deut. 7:12-15, “If you pay attention...follow....He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land...your flocks....You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless....The Lord will keep you free from every disease.”
4. Ps. 81:13-14, “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!”
B. TO PUT US INTO FAMILIES “God sets the lonely in families” Ps. 68:6.
1. The chicks, beneath the wings of the hen, look very happy all crowded together. What a sweet little family they are! Those outside of a church family, don’t know the joy of its companionship.
2. When I came to Christ, I lost 3 or 4 friends, and was alienated from my mother. But I found that I gained hundreds of friends, and found I had new mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. (My own family did get saved too!)
3. My heart goes out to all the lonely sinners, who say, “Nobody seems to care about me.” if they would just come to Christ & to church, they would soon find happy fellowship!
C. TO GIVE THE COVER OF SAFETY
1. If there’s a hawk in the sky, the mother hen gives her peculiar cluck of warning, and they scurry beneath her wings. On cold nights the chicks might freeze if they remained exposed, but under the hen’s wings, they are warm.
2. ILLUS. After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers...found a bird literally petrified in ashes. Startled by the eerie sight, they knocked over the bird with a stick, and three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. She could have flown to safety but refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze arrived, the mother had remained steadfast, being willing to die so that those under her wings would live. [James Botts]
3. God, in Christ, is the Giver of safety. He will preserve you from old sins, future temptations, and a thousand snares of the enemy.
D. GOD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU
1. Chickens are timid animals most of the time, but when it comes to their baby chicks, they lose their timidity and become positively feisty!
2. God too gets upset when His children are mistreated; God will defend His own. “The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes” Deut. 1:30. God will take care of you!
E. HE WILL ASSIST WITH GROWTH
1. The hen is also a cherisher of growth. And when the child of God lives near Christ, and hides beneath His wings, he grows fast!
2. Out from under God’s fellowship – there’s no advancing from grace to grace or feeble faith to strong faith. Only when we abide under the shadow of the Almighty do we grow!
II. HOW DOES GOD GATHER US?
God makes Himself and His deeds known to us.
A. GENERAL REVELATION
1.“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Rom. 1:20.
2. David said the stars & and nature “declare the glory of God” Ps. 19:1. Paul said God’s moral code is “written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness” Rom. 2:15. So God has dispersed the knowledge of Himself in many ways, so that we may know Him.
B. SPECIAL REVELATION
1. God has also broken into world history by performing supernatural acts, such as the flood of Noah, dispersing humanity at the Tower of Babel, destroying Sodom & Gomorrah, opening the Red Sea & planting Israel in Canaan, and many other acts recorded in Scripture. God also sent His Son into the world to die for us. These are special revelations of God.
2. I believe that every person also receives a certain amount of personal exposure to the presence of God -- that He’s listening/ responding. If they respond positively to that, they get more light (Lk. 8:18; 19:26).
3. Don Richardson’s book, “Eternity in their Hearts” details how God revealed Himself to many primitive cultures. Many Muslims today are having visions and dreams of Christ.
C. DRAWING BY THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. God is also trying to gather us to Himself by the drawing of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit strives with us (Gen. 6:3), convicts us of sin, reminds us of what Jesus has said, and reproves us is we choose wrongly (John 14:26; 16:8).
2. “While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer” Jer. 7:13.
III. BEWARE: MISSED OPPORTUNITIES BECOME JUDGMENTS
A. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES BECOME JUDGMENTS
1. God's dealings with us must have consequences, if we ignore them. If God acts in mercy, yet we refuse, what shall happen? Judgment. Treatment of our opportunities becomes a revelation of our character and destiny.
2. Jesus wanted the Jews to be spared from the onslaught of the Romans, the destruction of Jerusalem, and their centuries-long exile – fleeing, being killed, or sold as slaves to all nations – but they would not.
B. IT’S LIMITED TO A TIME PERIOD
1. Noah’s generation was given 120 years, but their time ran out and God saw it was useless to deal with them further. The same is true of each one of us. We each have a span of time in which God will deal with us. If we don’t respond within that time of grace, the door of opportunity will shut and will no longer be available.
2. Someone might say, “God doesn’t work like that; God won’t just cut people off!” What about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? What about Noah’s generation? What about the Israelites that disobeyed God, both in the desert and in the promised land?
3. In every instance, there came a day when God said, “That’s it. I’m done dealing with them. Their judgment is come!” What about Nineveh under Jonah? They got 40 days to repent. Is that not a limited time?
4. God dealt with Samson until he told his secret to Delilah. He “sold his birthright” for sexual relations.
C. DANGERS OF IGNORING GOD
1. Brushing God off, individually, can have the same serious consequences. Jonah found himself in a storm and then swallowed by a huge fish. Samson found himself blind and strapped to a mill, turning it like an animal.
2. We dare not ignore God, but pay close attention to His Word and His Spirit. Hear God’s Word; “By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward” Ps. 19:11.1.
3. What we need, is the sincere desire to seek God! People say, “I’m willing,” but they really aren’t. They have no heart to repent or to leave their sin. Will we be different? Will we follow hard after God, like David?
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: CHANCE TO BE SAVED LIMITED
1. We are used to expiration dates and “limited-time" offers on all kinds of products. ALL OFFERS HAVE LIMITS! One of the old Saxon kings set out with an army to put down a rebellion in a distant province of his kingdom.
2. When the insurrection had been quelled and the army of the rebels defeated, the king placed a candle over the archway of the castle where he had his headquarters and, lighting the candle, announced through a herald to all who had been in rebellion against him that those who surrendered and took the oath of loyalty while the candle was burning would be spared. The king offered them his clemency and mercy, but the offer was limited to the life of the candle.
3. Every great offer of life and of time has its candle limitations. This is true of God’s offer of grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. There’s a limited period of time in which we can take advantage of God’s offer and the opportunity.
B. THE CALL
1. Are you willing to accept God’s clemency and forgiveness for your sins? Are you ready to repent and forsake your wrong activities?
2. God is saying, “How often I wanted you to come to Me, but you would not!” If you repent of your former neglecting of God’s call, stand and let’s pray.
[This is a rewrite of Charles Spurgeon’s message, “I Would, But Ye Would Not.”]
