#102 Lu. 11:47-51 JOINING THE FOREFATHERS IN KILLING THE PROPHETS

Introduction:

    Jesus had pronounced woe upon the Jewish leaders.  One of them
spoke up and said in effect, "Hey!  You're talking about us and we
don't like  what you are saying about us." He apparently expected
an apology or retraction.  Instead the Lord pronounced another woe
upon them.  He condemns them because they join with their
forefathers in killing the prophets.

I.  The sin of the forefathers in persecuting and killing the
    prophets

    V.  47, "Woe unto you!  for ye build the sepulchres of the
prophets, and your fathers killed them." The prophets spoken of
here are Old Testament prophets.  We often hear the names of the
Old Testament prophets and we think, "These were great men.  In
their day they must have been very highly respected by the people.
They must have been very popular.  They must have had great crowds
of people to flock to hear them.  There were such men as Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah,
Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
These are all great men of the Bible.  These are men whom God
chose to write the greater part of the Old Testament.  They
certainly must have been great men of God and they must have been
very fellows in their day."
    Nothing could be farther from the truth.  They were great men,
but they were not very well liked by the majority of people in
their day.  They were not at all popular.  Instead, they were very
severely persecuted by the majority of people who knew them.
    Let me cite Isaiah for example.  The Bible says nothing
specific about how Isaiah died and we have no authentic historical
record, but tradition has it that he was killed by being sawed
into two pieces.
    Then there was Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was arrested and thrown
into a dungeon where he sunk down into the mire.  He nearly
starved to death in the dungeon.  We have no record of how he
died, but we do know that he was badly mistreated.  He was hated
by the governmental officials.  He was hated by the religious
leaders, the priests and prophets.  That is, they were false
prophets.
    Ezekiel was another.  Ezekiel was among the captive Israelites
who were carried to Babylon as slaves.  Likewise, there is no
record of his death, but it is known that he was not very popular
among the Jews who were in captivity.
    We could go through the whole list and the story is the same.
None of them were very popular among the people among whom they
lived and preached.  While the Bible does not give a specific
account of the deaths of these men, we do know that many of them
were severely persecuted and that some of them were put to death.
Jesus Himself makes that very clear in our text.  Jesus said the
forefathers of the Jewish leaders of His day put many of the
prophets to death.

II.  The like sin of the Jewish leaders in Jesus' day

    Jesus then told the Jewish leaders that they built the
sepulchres or graves of the prophets whom their fathers had
killed.  That is, they built the graves up.  They erected stones
and decorated them.  They made them look attractive and beautiful.
They engraved words of praise on the stones.  In his account,
Matthew has them saying, "If we had been living back in the days
of the prophets we would not have killed them like our fathers
did."  That is, with their lips they paid tribute to the prophets
of old.  With their words they highly honored them.
    But Jesus was not taken in by their words.  Jesus viewed them
as  hypocrites.  He viewed the building and decorating of the
graves of the prophets from an altogether different point of view.
As far as Jesus was concerned it was as if the fathers killed the
prophets and the Jewish leaders of His day had buried them.  It
was as if they were in cahoots with their fathers in together in
the evil deeds.  V.  48, "Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the
deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build
their sepulchres."
    V. 49, "Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send
them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and
persecute."  Jesus here was not quoting from some Old Testament
passage.  Rather He was speaking directly from the wisdom of God
as given by God the Heavenly Father.  On one occasion He said that
every word that He spoke during His whole earthly ministry came to
Him directly from God the Heavenly Father.  This is most certainly
what He is claiming here about the statement that He is making
about the Jewish leaders.  Jesus said that just as God sent the
prophets to the forefathers and the forefathers killed those
prophets, even so God would send prophets and apostles to this
generation and the Jewish leaders to whom He was speaking would
persecute and kill them.  The children of the men who killed the
prophets of old would now kill the prophets and apostles whom God
would send to them.
    Perhaps the most striking thing about this statement is that
Jesus Himself was one of those prophets.  Bible scholars all seem
to agree that according to Scripture Jesus holds three offices.
He is Prophet, Priest, and King.  It was as a prophet of God that
He came to Israel speaking the very word of God.  Every word that
He ever spoke were uttered just exactly as God the Father in
Heaven directed Him to speak.  No other prophet in all the history
of man could make that claim.  Many prophets spoke the word of
God, but no other prophet could claim that everything he ever
spoke was directly from God the Father.
    There was another prophet whom God sent immediately before
Jesus.  God sent John the Baptist to the nation of Israel.  Now I
might say that John was very popular with the common people the
same as Jesus was popular with the common people.  But neither
John nor Jesus were ever accepted among the leaders.  It did not
bother the Jewish leaders at all when Herod beheaded John, and if
they could just have their way they would do the same thing for
Jesus.
    Jesus said in effect that God was putting the Jewish leaders
of that generation to the test.  They would fail the test.  Just
as their fathers had persecuted and killed the prophets of old,
these men would persecute and kill the prophets and the apostles
whom God was sending to them.  It was not long after Jesus spoke
these words to them that these very men led in the crucifixion of
Jesus and led in the persecution and killing of the apostles.
    Jesus pronounced woe on them.  Now in the earlier woes Jesus
was talking exclusively about the woe that would come when they
would be cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.  And that
suffering and woe is still involved here in this woe.  But the
suffering from the pronouncement of this woe will not wait until
the judgment and the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.  This suffering
will begin right soon.

III.  The wrath of God that would be poured out on that generation

    Listen to what Jesus said.  V. 50-51,  "That the blood of all
the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may
be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the
blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the
temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this
generation."  Let me put it another way.  Jesus was saying that
God had been storing up His anger.  Way back in time when Cain
slew Abel God got angry.  But instead of venting all of the anger
on Cain He stored some of it up.  Then down through the years
whenever one of God's prophets was persecuted and killed God got
angry and stored up more of His anger.  Whenever Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Habakkuk or whoever it might be was persecuted God got
angry and stored up His anger.  Then right in their own current
events another prophet by the name of Zacharias was slain right
between the brazen alter and the temple.  God continued to store
up more of His anger.
    Down through the years God had continued to store up His
anger.  Many was the time He had to --so to speak--count to ten
and bite His lip in order to keep from pouring out His wrath on
this nation.
    Jesus said the time has finally come.  God would finally pour
out upon this generation all the anger that He had been storing up
through the years Abel to the recent death of Zacharias.  Jesus
was talking, of course, about the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Romans in 70 A.  D.  This was the outpouring of God's stored up
wrath upon the nation of Israel, upon their wicked leaders and
upon their fickle people.  It was a horrible, horrible event.  But
let me say to you that in spite of all the horror of that event,
it was not as horrible as that time when they will spend eternity
in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.

IV.  A warning for men today

    Now listen.  The words of Jesus to those Jewish scribes or
lawyers--those word of Jesus to those Jewish Pharisees should
serve as a warning to every man, woman, boy and girl who is lost.
It ought to be like a trumpet blast that will shake your very soul
and make you tremble with fear because you are headed for the
fires of hell.  It ought to cause you to turn to God in repentance
of your sin and make you fall at the feet of Jesus and ask Him to
save your soul.
    Listen to me also you who are saved.  These word of Jesus
ought also to sound out a warning to you.  God's people are not in
danger of going to hell because they are kept by the power of God.
They are saved by the grace of God and they are kept by the power
of God.
    Neither are God's people are likely to ever kill one of God's
preachers today like the Jews of old time killed God's prophets
and apostles.  God's people today are not likely to ever literally
take the life of one of God's men.  But I will tell you what they
can do.  They can murder the ministry of one of God's men.  With
their tongues they can kill the ministry of one of God's preachers
or one of His deacons or one of His Sunday school teachers or
youth workers.  With their tongues Christians can even kill a
church.  And when that happens God will get angry.  He will get
angry and He will deal with the guilty party.
    Further, there are a lot of things that a saved person can do
that will make God angry.  God will get angry and the dishonesty
or the immorality of one of His children.  While God will not send
one of His people to hell for their ungodliness God will never-
the-less be angry by such a deed and God will vent His anger on
the guilty party.
    I am convinced of one thing, if there was any Jewish leader
present there on that occasion who heard Jesus sound out the
warning and turned to God in repentance and faith in the Lord
Jesus then that man god saved.  The Lord has never turned away any
human being who truly repented of his sin and trusted in Jesus
Christ for salvation.  I am equally convinced that if there is any
unsaved man, woman, by or girl in this congregation today who will
turn to God right now and put his faith in Jesus Christ as Savior
that Jesus will save that person right here right now today.

Conclusion:

    So this is what I a going to do.  I am going to call for our
musicians to come forward and I am going to call on you to turn to
the Lord from the depth of your heart and soul.  I am going to
call on you to ask the Lord to save you and I will assure you that
your prayer will not go unheard.  I am going to ask you then to
come forward and to profess Jesus before men.  Come and get your
destiny settled with God today.
    In addition to this, I am going to ask those who are already
saved and who need to come in some way to come forward at this
time.  Perhaps you are a member here who needs to get your life
straightened out with God.  Perhaps you are a member somewhere
else and you need to come and move your membership here.  Perhaps
you are saved but you need to follow the Lord in baptism.  We ask
you to come and do the will of God.  Step right out and come.