Bottom line up front: Killing the Truth-teller

Context: 48 hours before the execution of the Christ. Antagonism towards God the Son incarnate had reached a fever pitch. Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, and other religious hypocrites, especially, demonstrated a hatred of Jesus unparalleled in its fierceness except perhaps by Satan himself.

Question: Will we learn from Jesus’ rebuke? Below are Jesus’s words. Remember: This is just hours before He’ll be flogged, spat upon, stripped, mocked, and crucified publicly.

Text: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37, ESV)

Teaching: Did you catch the rebuke that Jesus pronounced? The center of religiosity, Jerusalem, with all of its robed religious leaders, with all of its learned lawyers, theologians, teachers of the Law, scribes, etc. this center of religiosity was known for what? Killing the prophets. Stoning the truth-tellers. For shutting up the truth in order to preserve its traditions that damned souls.

Takeaway: How do we respond when God graciously sends a truth-teller into our midst? Do we embrace him? Learn from him? Do we return to God? Do we demonstrate a spirit of humility? Do we train ourselves in the powers of discernment? Or do most folks do what Jerusalem did when Jesus rebuked those who should have seen the judgment they were invoking on themselves for their rejection of the ultimate truth-teller, the Lord Jesus? If you want to see where people stand theologically with God, look how they treat the truth-tellers.