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It was nearing the Passover, and Jesus was ready to make His triumphal entry, as we call it, into the city of Jerusalem. At the summit of the Mount of Olives, a crowd had gathered as Jesus made His approach to Jerusalem on this particular Sunday on the back of a donkey. They welcomed and they hailed Him as the promised King, but a very different reception was awaiting Him inside the gates of the city. This would be the last mile of Jesus’ earthly life before His crucifixion. This was the final week and He knew what awaited Him at Jerusalem. Luke’s gospel sets the scene.

Luke 19:41 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

Jesus could very well have wept over Himself and over His circumstances. He could’ve thought about His friends and disciples who would soon betray and desert Him, and wept over that. He could’ve thought about the unfair treatment He would soon receive, and had plenty of reason to weep. The horrors of the scourging and the crucifixion He would endure frightened Him as a man, and the thought of His heavenly Father leaving Him and turning His face away must’ve been weighing very heavily upon the mind of our Savior. But those weren’t the reasons that Jesus wept that day. Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and the Bible says that He “wept over it.”

The New Testament tells us about three occasions on which Jesus wept. We’re told about the day that Jesus wept tears of sympathy over the death of His dear friend, Lazarus. When word came to Him that Lazarus was sick and had died in the city of Bethany, Jesus went there to be with Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ family, and we’re told simply that, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Now, Jesus knew that Lazarus would be all right. He went there to raise him from the dead. But when He saw their hearts filled with grief and bewilderment, he shed quiet tears of sympathy.

Then, we read about Jesus shedding tears of agony on the eve of His death. He went deep in the garden of Gethsemane and He wept tears of dread and sorrow. Luke vividly describes Jesus’ private moments, knowing what was ahead of Him.

Luke 22:44 “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly…”

The gospel writers don’t tell us that Jesus wept, but the writer of Hebrews does.

Hebrews 5:7 “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared…”

Those were hot and bitter tears, as Jesus shuddered to think of Calvary and the helplessness and abandonment that He would feel on the cross.

But there’s another time that Jesus wept. It should’ve been a great time for joy and triumph, but rather, it was a time for tears. The Lord was approaching the city of Jerusalem for His last week, the week of the cross, the week of His passion. Many miles, many miracles, many sermons, many memories were now behind Him, and with a great sense of determination, yet trepidation, Jesus sets His face toward Jerusalem and He prepares to make His royal entry into the holy city. We usually refer to it as His “triumphal entry.” Whereas a returning King would enter the city on the back of a warhorse in victory or celebration, Jesus, the prince of peace, enters on the back of a donkey. Kings and Generals might ride down a pathway strewn with flowers and ride beneath a golden banner, but there were no such things adorning the procession of Jesus on this day. A crowd of common people had gathered around Him. Many of them spread out their garments on the ground. Some broke off the branches of palm trees and laid out a path for the coming King to enter Jerusalem. That, consequently, made the Pharisees so mad that they could hardly stand it, and they told Jesus’ disciples to rebuke the crowd and make them stop (Luke 19:39). The people were crying out in celebration, praise and adulation as Jesus began this descent down the western slope of Olivet. Now, that would’ve provided a magnificent view. It was a wonderful panorama from that point of the beautiful city of Jerusalem and its temple. In fact, J.W. McGarvey and Philip Pendleton tell us that the summit of Olivet was about 200 feet in elevation above the nearest wall of Jerusalem and about 100 feet above the highest point in the city. So, Jesus could look down at all of Jerusalem like an open book. It must’ve been a stunning view! Then suddenly, the Bible tells us this:

Luke 19:41 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

Scholars tell us that the verb “wept” here doesn’t mean that tears merely filled the eyes of Jesus and ran down His cheeks, like at the death of Lazarus. No. Rather, it means that He broke down and He sobbed. These were uncontrollable tears and convulsive sobs. Why? Jesus looks down and sees the city in a bright array. There was an air of excitement in the streets, as it was a time for Passover. Pilgrims from all over had come and filled the city. And there’s the temple, shining in the sun, the pride of Israel! It was breathtakingly beautiful, but Jesus weeps over it. When He looks down at the city and sees the houses, He sees them flattened and burned. When He sees that temple standing tall and glittering bright, He sees a heap of smoldering ruins. When He sees the people walking down the streets in Jerusalem, He actually sees the walking dead. He sees corpses brutally slaughtered. And when He looks down at the cobblestone pathways of that city that day, He actually sees rivers of blood, because He was looking into the future. He saw what the others did not, and could not see at the time, and He was so overcome that He burst into tears. I want to suggest some reasons why Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and consequently why Jesus must weep over many of us today.

First of all, I believe that Jesus wept over the spiritual condition of Jerusalem. When the Lord looked down at the city, He would’ve seen Mt. Moriah and Herod’s Temple. It was an architectural wonder. In fact, scholars wonder today how people of that time would’ve built such a thing. This was the second temple that was built, about 500 years before Jesus was born. The first temple was built by Solomon, and it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. After some years in exile, some of the people were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, but it paled in comparison to the first temple. But, shortly before the first century and the birth of our Savior, Herod set out to rebuild and renovate the temple. He wanted it to rival all of the temples of the ancient world. He spent a vast fortune and several decades dismantling and rebuilding it, and it was something to behold. The temple mount was built up and smoothed and massive walls surrounding the temple were built. The walls alone were huge, standing several stories high. The temple grounds would’ve covered the equivalent of several football fields, or about 35 acres. The temple building itself was made of massive and precious stones and was supported by columns or pillars, each of which was made of a single stone of polished marble, according to Josephus. It was, without a doubt, a breathtaking sight, as Jesus stands up on the slope of Olivet and sees it. But, He doesn’t see a beautiful house of worship. He sees a den of thieves. He would march into the courts of that temple the very next day, with eyes flaming with righteous indignation and He would cast those religious leaders out of that place for turning God’s house of prayer into a house of merchandise and corruption. The temple, the place where He, the promised Messiah, should’ve been most immediately recognized and worshipped, would instead be the seed of skepticism and the place where He would meet some of His fiercest opposition and rejection. It broke the heart of Jesus to see the temple of His father become such a place of corruption and false religion.

I would imagine that it grieves the Savior today, as He looks down from heaven and sees what ignorant and carnal men have done to His church: commercializing it, prostituting it, dividing it, perverting it. Make no mistake, we live in a day of counterfeit Christianity. We live in a day much like the Jews of old, where men have a form of godliness but they deny the power thereof, as Paul said would be the case (2 Timothy 3:5). Men have ignored Christ’s purpose, His plan, His mission for the church. They’ve turned it into something completely foreign to the pattern and teaching of the New Testament.

You know, Josephus tells us that there would’ve been as many as three million Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem for the Passover. But Jesus didn’t see millions of people there repenting of their sins and seeking God. He saw people caught up in the superficial show of dead and meaningless and ineffectual religion. I mean, look at this very scene surrounding Jesus:

Luke 19:37-38 “And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.”

Do you realize this same crowd, who is here crying out, “Hail Him,” just five days later will be yelling, “Crucify Him!”? Jesus could see their hearts and He knew the hypocrisy and fickleness. He knew the ignorance and self-righteousness and the hard-heartedness that filled that city, and He couldn’t help but weep.

I believe there’s another reason that Jesus wept over that city. He saw their fleeting opportunity. Time was running out.

Luke 19:41-42 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it. Saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”

What does He mean by that? He means that this should’ve been a jubilant time, because their King whom they had waited for hundreds and hundreds of years was now here! Their Messiah was standing here in their presence; the promised seed of Abraham was right before their eyes! If ever they should’ve believed and turned to God in repentance, it was now! They should’ve known all along, but especially NOW! After all, they had seen the miracles and acknowledged the great and mighty works that were done. They had seen the prophecy fulfilled. Here they were, headed into Jerusalem to observe the Passover like they had done for centuries, and who was the Passover all about? Jesus. He WAS their Passover, but they didn’t know it. This would be the golden opportunity of their lives, and they were absolutely blind to it. Jesus came to bring them peace with God, but instead, His peace would be met with their violence. His salvation would be met with their skepticism. Yes, they had been looking for Him for hundreds of years, and now were missing Him as He stood right before them. And now, it was a matter of days until they would commit the ultimate sin and crucify Him. If there was ever a time for them to repent, it was in these few days before they crucified Jesus, but their time of opportunity was almost up. The Jews, who should’ve been the first to receive Him, as a nation flatly rejected Him, and punishment awaited.

You know, God always gives a season of opportunity before He pours out His judgment. Always. Even when men are at their worst, God holds back His wrath and gives room for repentance. But God’s patience has a limit. Six hundred years before this incident, there was a weeping prophet just like the Lord Jesus, who came begging for God’s people to repent because the moments were precious; the sands of time were quickly slipping through the hourglass of God’s patience. Jeremiah wasn’t a ‘positive preacher.’ He preached to the people of Judah and warned them time and time again to repent or judgment would come. They wouldn’t listen to weeping Jeremiah, just like they didn’t listen to our weeping Savior. Finally, just as Jeremiah had warned, here came the Babylonians, who laid siege to Jerusalem and trapped the Jews inside. They literally sealed off the city and you know what happened? They starved. And with tears dripping from his cheeks, Jeremiah lamented over them and his words are haunting.

Jeremiah 8:20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

What was he talking about? He literally meant that the city was surrounded by fields of ripened grain. There was plenty to eat, there was grain all around them, but they were starving. Their opportunity of harvest was gone. You see, the Babylonians had encircled the city and the Jews couldn’t get to the fields to harvest the grain. Starvation had set in, times became desperate. We’re told that mothers even cooked and ate their own children! God’s wrath and judgment was being poured out!

God had looked down in the days of Noah and said the following:

Genesis 6:3 “My spirit shall not always strive with man…”

That’s a warning to us today, as well.

Isaiah 55:6 “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.”

In other words, the harvest of life itself is passing away and we are not saved. You know, God opens a door of mercy before He closes it in judgment forever. We have enjoyed religious freedom in our part of the world for a long time. We ought to be ashamed. We have Bibles in abundance. We’ve had enough preaching to save the entire world a thousand times over, but what have we done with that opportunity? We’ve rejected the truth, gotten drunk on pleasure and pride. We’ve exchanged redemption for riches, and time is running out. Jesus now, six hundred years after Jeremiah, looks at that same city that would now, ultimately and finally reject Him to the point where they would murder Him, and He, like Jeremiah, weeps over it. He knows that time is running out. In what way was time running out?

Luke 19:43-44 “For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

Now, when Jesus said that, He was actually looking about forty years in the future, when one of the worst blood baths in human history would take place. Near the end of the Jewish war, the Roman Army, led by Titus, would surround the city and siege it and leave it in ruins. The secular Jewish historian, Josephus, paints the most chilling picture of what happened then. These people on the slope of Olivet who were leaping and dancing about Jesus on this day and shouting, “Hosanna, Hosanna,” Jesus knew that in just a little while, one million of them would be slaughtered by the Romans. They crucified Jews, we’re told, until they ran out of trees to crucify them upon! The blood ran down the streets like a river! That tall, beautiful, pristine temple that Jesus saw would be burned and toppled until not one stone was left upon another. That vista of beautiful Jerusalem with its lush gardens and trees would be turned into a desert when the Romans were finished with it. In a matter of a few months after Titus invaded it, that splendid city would be nothing more than smoldering ruins. Jesus would refer to it, as would Daniel, as “the abomination of desolation” (Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14, Daniel 9). Jerusalem destroyed and the nation of Israel wiped away.

But did you know that not one single Christian died in the destruction of Jerusalem? They escaped. But 1.1 million Jews, who in that golden hour of opportunity rejected the Christ, died. Jesus wept over what was about to happen. It was a time for tears.

Mark it down. This world has a date with destruction. It’s not going to just keep going on and on and on forever. One day, it’s going to be judgment day. One day, the last grain of sand is going to sink through the hourglass of time and the world is going to meet the wrath of God. Now, Jesus doesn’t delight in that. He weeps over that. He weeps over your lost and undone condition today because He has given you a golden opportunity and you, perhaps, are wasting it. Judgment is coming.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

You don’t have to perish! But this world is bent on going to hell. It’s a time for tears. Fanny Crosby wrote that immortal gospel song:

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave.

Weep for the erring one, lift up the fallen. Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.

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I have several friends who like to swap and trade things. It seems they’re always buying something with the intention of turning around and selling it. So, of course, they’re careful not to pay too much for whatever it is, because they want to be able to flip it, to make a profit of some kind. There are others who buy something and they pay a very high price for it, maybe thinking they’ll keep it, but they don’t keep it for very long because they don’t like it like they thought they would or they just don’t use it that much. So, it ends up in a rummage sale or being taken to Goodwill. And then, there are things that are incredibly valuable. So much so, that the average person may never be able to make the investment to buy them. And when those things are bought, the owner wouldn’t even consider parting with it. It becomes a very precious thing to them. There are some things on the earth today that are so valuable, their worth is almost unimaginable. It is difficult to put a price tag on them. That, of course, is true of some of the intangible things in life. In fact, nowhere is that more true than when it comes to things eternal and unseen.

Proverbs 23:23 “Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”

Solomon is telling us that the truth is a precious commodity that carries a very high price tag. And once we have it, if we truly realize its worth to us, there is no amount of money that would persuade us to part with it. That is the subject of our study today: the true value of truth.

Not much value is placed upon truth today. In fact, I’ve mentioned in many of our studies that we are living in the postmodern era: the age where people tell us there really is no such thing as truth, or at best, truth is relative to the person who believes it. In other words, what is true for you is true for you, and what’s true for me is what’s true for me, and there is no such thing as a universally accepted and absolute standard of truth. However, Solomon in his proverb affirms that truth is attainable, it is desirable and it is very valuable. He says, “Buy the truth, and sell it not…”

Jesus spoke of the truth as it pertained to the kingdom of heaven in that way.

Matthew 13:44-46 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

Both of these brief parables relate to us the same overall truth, but there is a distinction between the two. The first refers to a man who finds a treasure. He finds a treasure when he is confronted with the kingdom of Christ, and he immediately esteems it as a very valuable thing and he invests in it. In fact, he invests everything that he has to safeguard it and keep it in his possession. Now, the merchant who purchased the costly pearl had set out on a mission to find pearls, and he found one that was more valuable than all of the others, and he bought it at the expense of everything he possessed.

Both of these parables tell us several things about the truth and the church. First of all, they tell us that a person needs to have some appreciation for its value, or else he’ll never attempt to purchase it. Both of these men immediately recognized what they found, and they set out to buy it for their own.

Another thing the parables teach us is that the truth doesn’t come cheap. It is available to anyone who truly wants to obtain it, but the truth comes at great cost. You don’t uncover it accidentally. It comes at the cost of great seeking, great inquiry and ultimately, great sacrifice. The Bible isn’t necessarily talking about our money. These men had to spend everything they had, and that merely represents the fact that true service to God comes only at great sacrifice on our part. The rich young ruler was told by Jesus that keeping the Ten Commandments wasn’t enough. He had to relinquish his hold on all of the riches that he loved so much in order to be saved (Mark 10:17-22). The Bible emphasizes the fact that the truth costs us something. And a religion that doesn’t require anything isn’t worth anything.

Solomon implied in our text that the truth must be bought, and at a high price. That high price is often great sacrifice. Perhaps it’s the price of inconvenience. It can be the price of ridicule or even persecution. It can be the price of having to turn your back on something that you believed and been a part of all of your life. That can be very difficult. That can be an incredibly hard step for someone to take, but such is the price of truth.

What makes truth so expensive? What makes it such a valuable commodity? You know, there are several factors in the economies of the world that determine an item’s value. The first is, its availability. The less of something that there is, the more expensive that thing becomes. That’s Economics 101. When the price goes up at the gas pump, one of the usual suspects is a higher demand for oil. When people drive more or refineries are refining less, then the market drives the price of oil up and we pay more for gas. If you could go out into any old stream of water and pan gold, then gold wouldn’t be so expensive. Let something be found in abundance, and it can usually be purchased rather inexpensively.

Spiritual commodities are not that different. For example, the Bible calls the blood of Christ “precious.”

1 Peter 1:19 “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”

That word “precious” is very significant. It doesn’t mean adorable. Rather, it means valuable, unique. Why do you suppose that word is used? Millions of animals were slaughtered and their blood poured out upon Jewish altars during the Old Testament dispensation. But why was Jesus’ blood precious? It’s because He was the only lamb without spot or blemish. He was the only sinless human being to ever live, so you might say in the market of souls, His blood could purchase what no other blood could. It’s rare, one of a kind.

The truth is the same way. The truth is a rare commodity in the exchange of thoughts and ideas today. In fact, we have cheapened whatever concept we have in our minds of truth with the notion that ‘you believe whatever you want and I’ll believe whatever I want and it really doesn’t matter what the Bible says about it because everybody has their own interpretation of the Bible anyway, so as long as you’re sincere, nothing else matters.’ Have you ever thought about how that cheapens the truth? There are millions of doctrines in the world today but most of them don’t represent the true teaching of the Bible, and are therefore, not worth anything. One is as good as the next when it comes to teachings that are not found in God’s Word. And, you know, if you can’t find one that you like, you just keep looking until you find one that might suit you. The truth though, is a precious commodity because it is so exclusively unique and rare.

1 Samuel 3:1 “And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.”

Now, when that was written, it had been some time since God had spoken anything to His people. And Samuel became the first in a long line of prophets after the period of silence on the part of God. So, what revelation they had from God was considered a precious thing.

Paul tells us that in this age of the world, God has spoken to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 1:1-2 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds…”

Christ appointed His twelve apostles who lived in the first century to be His ambassadors or messengers, through whom He would reveal the truth. Those men were guided by the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ’s truth to the world. You know, there is much being said in the name of religion today, but the vast majority of it does not agree with what the Bible says. As a result, we have to weed through a lot of men’s babble and nonsense to get to the truth of God’s Word. Just remember this, my friend: MUCH of what you hear today is NOT true, because it is not taught in the Bible. It may come from a very intelligent man or a man who has the gift of words or eloquent speech and may appear learned, but it’s not true because it is not taught in God’s Word. What is true is precious and you should latch on to it and cling to it.

1 John 4:1 “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

That word “prove” is telling us to put it to the test of God’s Word, and if it lines up with what the Bible says, then Paul says we are to grip it tightly. In other words, we are to consider it a precious thing and not turn loose of it. We are to put it in safe keeping in our hearts and to practice in our lives. So, the truth is valuable because of its rarity.

The truth is also valuable because of its source.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

That simple but profound statement from the lips of our Lord tells us much about the truth. For one thing, it tells us that all truth comes from God, and that makes truth a precious and valuable thing. Now, what man says is worth very little, regardless of how educated, eloquent, experienced or articulate that man may be. However, what God says is true and powerful.

Romans 3:4 “…let God be true, but every man a liar…”

The value of the truth is also seen in what it is able to do, or its efficacy.

John 8:32 “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Free from what? Free from sin, from condemnation, from ignorance and so forth.

James 1:21 “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

That alone makes it worth our investment! That makes every sacrifice, every effort, every hardship well worth it, in order to obtain the truth! So, I want to ask you, have you paid the price and purchased the truth? Or are you holding onto something that can’t be proven by the Bible, but instead perhaps amounts to nothing more than the tradition of your parents or a denomination, or the doctrines and think-so’s of men? Solomon says that we must buy the truth.

Then, Solomon says, in his parable about the true value of truth, that once we have the truth, it is far too precious to sell. In fact, he just plainly says sell it not. He doesn’t say we should sell it for a high price, but under no circumstances should we relinquish it. Do you know why collectors of fine things often comb rummage sales and estate sales and flea markets and junk stores? I like to go to places like that because I never know what l might find. Those places are such a draw because many people throw things away without realizing their value. Then you might end up being the fortunate one who stumbles upon that item and is able to purchase it at a good price. That happens a lot. Something gets sold at a yard sale for a few dollars or even a few cents that would’ve brought a much higher price had it been offered on the internet or at an auction, to people who appreciate it or know its value. People unwittingly lose a great fortune because they don’t know the worth of what they have.

There are multitudes of people who have been that way with the truth. They don’t esteem it very highly and it doesn’t take very much to get them to sell out, even though Solomon says that we shouldn’t sell it at ANY price. Think about it: many people will sell the truth for any number of reasons. Some will sell it for popularity or acceptance. It’s not hard to stand for something if others don’t oppose it. But it’s a different matter, you see, to stand by yourself and uphold the truth. That takes some courage. Only the person who understands the value of the truth will be willing to do that. Daniel understood how valuable the truth was when he refused to violate the law of God in order to appease the king by eating from his table and drinking his wine (Daniel 1). You see, truth meant more to Daniel than even the acceptance of the royal government. He wasn’t going to sell the truth out for prestige and acceptance with the king. I can tell you that it’s far from popular today to stand for what the Bible teaches about much of anything! If you stand for what the Bible says about morality in this day and time, you will immediately be labeled a hateful bigot or a Bible thumper. If you contend for what the Bible says about doctrine, you just wait. There is a multitude of people lined up to call you a legalist or a fundamentalist. And some people can’t stand up under that kind of criticism, so they sell the truth. Whatever pleases the most people, whatever is the course of least resistance, that’s what they believe, that’s where they go to church, that’s how they worship, and so on.

And then, there are those who sell the truth for comfort or convenience. That is, they’ll only stay with what is right as long as it comes easy and doesn’t demand too much of them. But should the truth to encroach upon their worldly lifestyle or their busy schedule, they’ll sell it. They treat the truth as though it’s not worth very much. They’ll trade it for something much less requiring. That reminds us of the story of God’s people after the division of the kingdom long ago. You’ll recall that Jeroboam was worried that the people would go back to Jerusalem to worship, and their hearts would thus be turned away from him, until they would rebel against him and kill him. He was so worried about that that he set up two idolatrous altars in the more nearby places of Bethel and Dan, and this is what he told the people:

1 Kings 12:28-29 “…It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan.”

Jeroboam told them to worship the substitutes that he had set up nearby. He sold his error to the people by convincing them that it would be easier and more convenient. Speaking of going to a place to gather with others for worship, I know of people even now, in this dispensation of time, who will drive a long distance to meet with a group of people who worship according to the Bible because there’s not a congregation like that in their community. And instead of just throwing up their hands, they go to great effort and great expense in order to make that trip Sunday after Sunday to join with people of like precious faith to worship according to the teaching of the Bible. You know, that sometimes leaves their neighbors, co-workers, family and friends scratching their heads and wondering why the church right down on the corner isn’t good enough. It’s because they value the truth, and they’re not willing to sell it for comfort or convenience. So, what does the Bible say happened when the people took the deal that Jeroboam offered them, and worshipped the idols in Dan and Bethel?

1 Kings 12:30 “And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.”

1 Kings 13:3 “…This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.”

God condemned Jeroboam’s false altars. Well, a lot of people are lured away from Jerusalem as it were, by the appeal of an easier religion. They sell the truth for convenience and for comfort.

Then there are those who sell the truth for what they think is progress. The word ‘liberal’ is often replaced with a more appealing word to some, and that is the word ‘progressive.’ In other words, implying that breaking with tradition, having a very loose view of God’s Word, leaving behind the old and established things, they consider that progress. They are ‘progressive’ as opposed to remaining mired in the mundane past. Well, I’m not necessarily opposed to change when it comes to things that are not divinely appointed. Some change is good. But much of the change in religion today is NOT good. It’s harmful, toxic and sinful because it is leading men away from the truth. The truth is not new! The truth is a very old thing and it doesn’t change with the times! There is no such thing as discovering new truth that has never been discovered. The truth is the truth that was revealed to the world two thousand years ago, and it’s been available for two thousand years. Nothing is going to come along that is going to be considered truth that has not already been revealed in God’s Word.

Jeremiah 6:16 “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…”

There is something to be said for what is tried and true, and that is the case with what has been established by precept or example in the Word of God. I believe the worship as it was offered by the early church is still our pattern and should be good enough for us today. Many of the modern innovations in doctrine and worship that so many people take for granted today may draw a crowd and appease the majority of cutting edge thrill seekers in religion today, but they don’t please the Lord because they are a departure from what His word teaches. The so-called ‘christian community’ is constantly evolving so quickly, in fact, that it is hard for anyone else to keep up. It’s like trying to keep up with the latest technology: you go and spend a lot of money on a new device and it’s not very long until it’s old hat. That’s the way it is with change in religion. The latest, greatest, most cutting edge thing, in just a few years, is going to be old hat. When you become un-tethered from the Word of God as your guide and as your standard, where will you end up? “Buy the truth, and sell it not…”

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Has there ever been an event in your life that changed you and put everything else into perspective? I mean, you’ve never been the same since that thing happened. When you try to recall a date, that event becomes a reference point. Or perhaps, whatever it was completely changed your attitude or the way you live your life. Well, the cross of Christ is the most influential event in the collective history of man. It was not just one of many events in the annals of religious history; it was the pivotal point where everything God promised was made reality. It divides the history of man into two distinct eras…before the death of Christ and after the death of Christ. It separates two systems of religion or two divine economies: the age of the law and the age of grace; the age of slavery to sin from the age of glorious freedom in Christ. There were many things that ceased when Jesus died and there were many things that began, and that’s going to be the focus of our study today.

Galatians 3:18-29 “For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin,that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

In verses 23 and 25, Paul uses two contrasting phrases. He speaks of the time “before faith came” and what happened “after faith came.” What did Paul mean by that? And just what changed when faith came? Our subject today deals with some of the most misunderstood things in the Bible. People have made some grave errors in their interpretation of the scriptures because they fail to understand what changed at the cross. I want us to study some of those things today.

The cross marked a great change between many things the Bible now calls old, compared with some things that are described as new. What stopped and what started at the cross? As Jesus struggled beneath the weight of His own body upon the cross and was down to His last seconds of life, He uttered His final words, “It is finished” (John 19:30). He wasn’t talking about His physical life. He was talking about the great plan of redemption that necessitated His death. He had to die to pay the debt our sins had incurred. Everything in the history of man from the fall of Adam to the day Jesus was crucified pointed to this great goal and played into the scheme that God laid out for our salvation. And so, when Jesus was breathing His last breath, those words were upon His lips, “It is finished.” His death marked the passing of something old and the beginning of something new and better! This is what Paul was referring to in Galatians 3, which we read earlier. He contrasts the time before the cross with the time after the cross, and the revelation of the gospel plan of salvation. He compares the time “before faith came” to the time “after faith came.”

The word “faith” here refers to the plan which now enables us to be saved through faith in Christ. Before Jesus died and the gospel was preached, salvation consisted of the promise of something to come. It could be fully realized only when that time came. The promise had to be fulfilled by Christ coming and executing the plan God had in mind from the beginning. Everything that happened before Christ died on the cross was designed by God to facilitate that event and once it took place, those things of the Old Testament era had fulfilled their purpose and were set aside or taken away. That’s what Jesus meant when He said this:

Matthew 5:17 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

In other words, Christ didn’t come to oppose the ceremonies of Moses or dispute what Moses and the prophets had said. He was not teaching something independent of and foreign to what the law said. In fact, Jesus kept the law all throughout His earthly life and was the only person to ever perfectly do so. What He was saying was that His life and ministry, and ultimately His death were the fulfillment of the law’s teachings and its purpose. When it was fulfilled, it took its place in history and a new age and a new and better system were ushered in. I want to prove that to you today by showing you what changed at the cross according to the scriptures.

Let’s begin with the law itself, because the death of Christ marked the end of the old law and the beginning of a new law. That’s what Paul is teaching in Galatians 3. Throughout his letter to the Galatians, for that matter, Paul is confronting the false teaching of Judaizers who were trying to take new Christians back to the law of Moses as the basis of their righteousness. These men were enforcing the rite of circumcision upon Gentile believers, saying that unless they kept the old law, they could not be saved. Paul vehemently denies their teaching and says that it makes null and void God’s promise of salvation through faith in Christ. He shows that the law of Moses was assigned a specific purpose for the age in which it was given, but that purpose was fulfilled in Christ and the Old Testament law was taken out of the way.

There are a lot of people today who make no distinction between the Old Testament and New Testament laws. They believe that both are in force today and as a result, they’re as likely to look to Isaiah as they are the book of Acts to learn what to do to be saved. However, Paul teaches in many passages that Christians have been freed from the yoke of Moses’ law.

Colossians 2:14 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, and was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.”

The Bible could not be any clearer about the fact that the Mosaic law with its ordinances and ceremonies (and that includes the observance of the Sabbath Day, animal sacrifices, the burning of incense, instrumental music in worship, and on and on…) was nailed to the cross of Christ and died, so far as their practice and authority were concerned. Now that bothers a lot of people and they say, “Don’t you believe the Old Testament is from God?” or “Don’t you go by the entire Bible?” That shows that they don’t understand the purpose of the Old Testament law and what the Bible says about it.

I believe the Old Testament is inspired just like the New Testament. I believe it came from God and is just as divinely perfect in its revelation as the writings of Paul. But I don’t believe it is intended to

regulate the worship and the lives of New Testament Christians, and you don’t either unless you’re still practicing animal sacrifices and all of the other ceremonies of the old law. The problem is, people today want to go back and cherry pick what they want from the Old Testament and bring it over into this age and leave what they don’t want back in that old era. Well, we can’t do that because Paul taught that the man who tries to keep one part of the Old Testament law is a “debtor to keep the whole law” (Galatians 5:3).

So, someone says, “If we aren’t to live our lives according to the Old Testament law then why was it given in the first place?” That’s exactly what Paul is explaining in our text.

Galatians 3:19 “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”

In other words, the law was given to show man his sinfulness and his need for a Savior. The Law of Moses was given to the Jews, or the children of Abraham, to reveal their own weakness. It was a law that no man was able to perfectly keep, except for Jesus Christ. As long as man was in bondage to that law and was trying to appear righteous by keeping it, he always fell short and was hopelessly frustrated. But man was not eternally trapped in that state of vexation and condemnation.

Paul says that law was given until the seed should come unto those to whom the promise was made. The seed Paul is talking about was none other than Jesus Christ, the promised One who came thru the lineage of Abraham. Remember how God promised Abraham thousands of years before that through his seed all nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18)? Jesus the Christ was that promised Messiah. Paul says here that the law was only to exist during the interim between when the promise was given and the fulfillment of that promise by the coming of Christ. Now, notice what Paul says in verses 22-26;

Galatians 3:22-26 “But the scripture (or the Old Testament law) hath concluded all under sin that the promise, by faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, (or before Christ came to save us thru faith in Him) we were kept under the law (the law of Moses), shut up unto the faith (or the gospel) which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law (the law which came by Moses) was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith (or the New Testament system of faith as opposed to the works of the Mosaic Law). But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

Paul says the law was given to the Jews to serve as their schoolmaster until Christ came. Notice that it would last forever. It was only until Christ came and brought the gospel. In Paul’s day, a schoolmaster was not a teacher, but rather a guardian. He was usually a slave who was appointed to mind the welfare of the slave owner’s child until he reached adulthood. He was to care for him until he was educated and able to navigate through life independently. Now the law was a guardian for God’s people during the time in which the plan of God was being developed and prepared. Renowned Bible scholars and commentators, J.W. McGarvey and Phillip Pendleton said, “It was intended to bring those under its authority to a state of spiritual development fit for the society and fellowship of Christ.” It was to prepare them mentally and spiritually for the Messiah and then final message of salvation He would bring to the world when He came.

Now, Paul says when Christ did come, bringing the offer of salvation through faith, that law ceased to govern and regulate the conduct of man. He plainly says “after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” (v. 25). In verse 26 he says, “for ye are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” We are not made the children of God through circumcision, or obedience to any other part of the Old Testament law. We are children of God by virtue of our obedient faith in Christ.

People today make a terrible mistake when they try to go back to the Old Testament for instruction in matters of Christian worship and salvation. We learn many important and valuable lessons by the examples given to us in the Old Testament, and we more clearly understand the teachings of the New Testament because of a knowledge of the Old, but the Bible teaches that Christians have no obligation or duty in regards to the Old Testament law and those who try to use that law as a basis for their religion today are doing harm to the cross of Christ and the gospel for which Christ died.

Galatians 5:4 “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”

Now that leads us to another observation: before the cross, God’s covenant was with the Jewish nation, but after the cross, all nations are equal in God’s eyes. Something a lot of people don’t realize is that the law of Moses was given to the Jews and not to Gentiles. When God made His promise to Abraham, He said that promise would be fulfilled through His relationship to Abraham’s family. He promised to make a great nation out of Abraham’s people, and He did. Moses and the Hebrews who escaped Egypt were the ones who came from Abraham, through Isaac and on down the line. God told Abraham that he was to have every male child from that day forward circumcised on the eighth day and that was to be the sign of the covenant He had with Abraham’s family. From that day forward, every child of Israel was circumcised in accordance with that covenant. After Moses led the children of Abraham out of Pharaoh’s land, God called him up to smoking, trembling Mount Sinai and gave him the law that would govern His people. That law constituted a covenant strictly between the Jews and God. That’s why the apostle Paul later said this, speaking of the Gentiles:

Ephesians 2:11-12 “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”

The Jews walked in the light of God’s covenant while the Gentiles lived in the darkness of sin, idolatry and the worship of pagan deities. They were excluded from God’s spiritual blessings. But all of that changed when Christ died. Paul continues:

Ephesians 2:13-16 “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off (the Gentiles) are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both (Jews and Gentiles) one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us (that’s talking about the law of Moses given to the Jews which excluded the Gentiles); Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body (or one church) by the cross…”

There you have it, my friends. Paul says Jews and Gentiles are now one in Christ.

Galatians 3:26 “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

We are all the children of Abraham by faith. That is, we are the heirs of all of the things God promised to the children of Abraham, even though there’s not a drop of Jewish blood flowing in our veins. We are the children of Abraham, in a spiritual sense…not because we can trace our genealogy back to him, because a Gentile can’t do that. And I’ll let you in on something else: a Jewish person can’t either. Did you know shortly after Christ came to earth and established the new Israel—His church—that the Roman army besieged the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and destroyed it? The Romans toppled the Jewish temple and with it the genealogical records of the entire Jewish nation that went all the way back to the beginning. Today, a man could not prove that he is physically related to Abraham if his life depended on it. No such record exists anymore. The genealogies recorded in the Bible are there for one purpose and that is to show that Jesus Christ was the promised seed of Abraham and the Son of David and that’s all that ultimately matters. That historic event of A.D. 70 was the final judgment of God upon the Jewish establishment of that day that rejected Christ and it was proof that now salvation or the special favor of God does not rest upon a group of people because of their lineage or their earthly heritage. It is a gospel that is universally offered to anyone who will place obedient faith in Christ. Now the result is that there is no difference in the eyes of God today between a Jew or a Gentile, or any other delineation of mankind for that matter. God doesn’t favor one people over another. God doesn’t look at who our ancestors are. He doesn’t look at the color of our skin or our nationality. He does not elevate one nation over another. He looks for one thing and that is the blood of Christ upon our souls.

I get impatient with some of these televangelists today who preach these fanciful theories about a millennial reign of Christ upon the earth where the Jewish nation is reinstated. They preach that God is still using Israel to fulfill His purposes in the world and, in fact, much of our foreign policy today is based on that idea. Well, I’m not opposed to national Israel today and I don’t want to see the people that live in that land mistreated in anyway. I love my Jewish neighbor and esteem my Jewish neighbor as highly as I do any other man. But I deny that he occupies a special or unique relationship to God by virtue of his birth. The Bible does not teach that. The relationship that God once had with the fleshly family of Abraham ceased after the cross, and His blessings were extended to all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike. God wants every Jewish person to be saved just as He wants every Gentile to be saved. But they must all be saved on the same terms: by putting their faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Now what does that mean? How can I become a child of God today? Before the cross, a man became a child of God by birth. But because of the cross, a man now becomes a child of God by virtue of the second birth or the “new birth.” Remember that famous conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus:

John 3:2 “The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Entrance into the kingdom that Christ established is not the result of our first birth, but a second birth that is produced by the regenerating power of the gospel. The gospel which was revealed by the Holy Spirit causes a man to be born again. The “new birth” makes him a member of God’s family, a child of the King himself and an heir to all of the inheritance that was promised so long ago. What do you suppose Jesus meant by saying a man must be born of water and of the spirit? Let’s go back to our text one last time:

Galatians 3:26-29 “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

There it is. Are you a member of God’s family? Are you an heir to the promise God made to Abraham so very long ago that was finally fulfilled in the coming of Christ and His death of the cross? You can be, if you’ll gladly obey the terms of His will and become such as should be saved.