The Christian Church is Doomed

• Scripture tells us that there will be many false teachers, and that only a remnant will be saved.
• We will see that the Church is doomed.
• But that God has given us all we need to be His true people, His remnant.
• The Scriptures prophesy that there will be a time of increasing numbers of false teachers, and there will be many who believe and follow them. It tells us that many will fall away on their account.

Warnings from Paul

As Paul writes in his first letter to his friend Timothy: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods. 1 Timothy 4:1-3

And then in his second letter to Timothy: For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4

We are now living in that time.

Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem

In our Gospel text for today we see that a similar time was upon the Jews in Jerusalem. And in Jesus’ tears and words for Jerusalem, we see how to respond to our own times, and in his actions in the Temple that we see in the second part of our text, we learn that those same actions are needed today. Jesus had earlier approached Jerusalem on a donkey, his path strewn with palm branches, the crowds shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

With the cheers of the people still ringing in his ears he looked up at the city of Jerusalem and burst into tears, weeping aloud, in the depths of grief. Jesus wept, not for himself, not for the suffering and death that he was to undergo just five days later, but he wept for the blindness of the people and their leaders, whose hard hearts despised the living Word, God incarnate, that had visited them and lived among them.

The Old Testament visible Church would not repent, would not acknowledge their sins, would not believe in him. In their hard-heartedness they would not receive the atonement, the desperately needed reconciliation with the Father that Jesus was about to freely give them with his death. Jerusalem, the capital city of God’s Old Testament Church, was about to reject her Saviour and her God. And even worse, she was soon to reject His Holy Spirit who would call them to repentance and faith in Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins.

Many deceived themselves that he was the long-awaited military king that would lead them to victory against the Roman occupier. The King in the line of David who would be the revolutionary leader to finally unite the Jewish people in open revolt against the Romans. He would have brought them the peace they really needed. But they didn’t want to know his peace.

And so forty years later, in response to a violent revolt led by the Jewish Zealots, Jerusalem would be mercilessly attacked by the Roman armies and utterly destroyed, not because God wanted it that way, not because God chose them for destruction, but “because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

The Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. He tells us that the city siege started at the time of the Passover festival, when many had gathered within the city from every land, and that there were about three million Jews in Jerusalem. During the three-year siege, Josephus writes, the Romans built a wall to encircle Jerusalem to cut off supplies. The people fell into such distress and famine, that they devoured everything and had nothing left, until they were compelled to eat their leather shoes and bow-strings.

As Jesus prophesied in Luke 19:43 “For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side “… By August 70 AD the Romans had breached the final defences and massacred much of the remaining population and raised the Temple to the ground. As Jesus goes on to say in verse 44: … “and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you “…

However, God performed a miracle for those that were repentant and believed in Jesus. The Christians, with the Apostles among them, those who did not despise His Word or the Holy Spirit, did not want anything to do with the violent uprising against the Romans, had all left the city, withdrawing into the regions of Samaria and Galilee. Thus, God separated and preserved His true people, the remnant who had repented, who loved Him, who received the New Covenant through Christ’s own blood. When Jesus looked up at Jerusalem and wept, he saw those people too. That is why he went on into the city to face his humiliation and death, as he knew it was the only thing that would save His precious remnant. Jesus knew he had to become the cornerstone for the new Church that would spread throughout the whole world.

The Church Today

So, what does this mean for us today? Think about the state of the Christian Church today. Think about all the Christian churches you know of in Wolverhampton, Birmingham and elsewhere in the UK and around the world. Think of the message you hear coming from those churches. Think of the worship practices you have heard of. Think of the public stance they have taken on doctrinal or social issues. How much of it focuses on Christ crucified and resurrected? Do you hear the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name? How much is about the truth of His Holy Word? How much is centred on that Word, and the Sacraments? How much is preparing people to bear the cross patiently, to face death bravely, and prepare people for eternal life with God? Does it make you weep? It should.

The Christian Church is God’s house, His Holy city. But it’s crumbling. Much of it isn’t built on the foundation stone of Christ. It’s built on shifting sand, so it’s destined to fall. It’s doomed.

Jesus knew Jerusalem was doomed, but look at what he did next: And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

As it would have been almost impossible for most Israelites to bring their sacrificial animals from their home to Jerusalem, it was permitted for those living at a distance to buy their sacrificial beasts and birds in Jerusalem. But God’s chosen people were acting just like pagans and treating this special place with contempt, filling it with noise and commerce and dodgy practices. All in a place that was supposed to be God’s. Holy, respectful and reverential. “but you have made it a den of robbers” … Jesus says. He is quoting verse 11 of our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah: 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?

Jesus used this quote for a reason. He was drawing the people’s attention to Jeremiah’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple by the Babylonians around 600 years before. Telling them that the fate of this Second Temple will be the same as the First because of their contempt for God’s Church, His Word, and for their unrepentance.

So Jesus drove out the things that were distracting the people from prayer, and stopping them from hearing and focusing on God’s Word. And with the temple cleansed of the noise and distractions, with the quiet and the reverence restored, Jesus then spiritually cleanses and sanctifies it by teaching the people there daily right up until his arrest. “And he was teaching daily in the temple.” and “… all the people were hanging on his words.” .. as Luke reports.

We know and experience the visitation of Jesus through his Word, through the Holy Spirit and through the Sacraments, but God’s Church seems to be in as bad a state as Jerusalem was when Jesus wept over it. It is largely a den of thieves, filled with teachings and practices and activities that distract from Christ and rob people of the assurance of salvation that they so desperately need. They are distracted from the true message of the gospel, of God’s boundless grace that brings salvation through His Son crucified. A Church that values entertainment over reverence in worship. That values riches and prosperity in this life over preparing for the next and values positive thinking and works over faith, repentance and prayer. It is full of preachers who preach falsehood in His name, and Church members whose itching ears have driven them away from His Word and to the nice sounding but deadly doctrines of men.

The Blessed Remnant

But there is a blessed remnant. Christians who believe and teach the true Gospel, who use the Sacraments devoutly, who pray to God in repentance and produce fruit in keeping with their faith. They are scattered all over the world, gathering in small pockets here and there. Some we know of, some we don’t. And so we learn from Jesus about the only things that save, that will ensure we are counted among that remnant. We learn from his example to drive out the things that distract us from prayer and hearing God’s Word. We learn, by daily contrition and repentance, to rid ourselves of the things that don’t belong in the Church and in our lives as Christians. To drive out the spiritual clutter, the noise and distractions of life, so that we can keep hearing and teaching the precious saving Word of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ still sits down in God’s temple, in His house, in the Holy Christian Church, to teach. He does this today through his Holy Spirit inspired Word and called teachers.

Hear His Voice

Hang on to Jesus’ precious Word. Hear his voice: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” John 10:1-4

Live each day remembering that judgment is coming on the world and even on the Church. Be reassured that through the gifts of faith, the Sacraments and His Word, God has given us all we need to escape the destruction that will come upon the apostate Church. You are His precious people. You are the remnant.

Amen.