Transcript
Now in your Bibles, will you turn with me to Luke chapter 23, the Gospel of Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23, and we want to begin reading at verse 27. Luke 23, and verse 27.
A great multitude of the people followed Him, and women also who mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, “Blessed are the barren wombs that never bore and breasts which have never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?’
At the age of 26, Barry Foster has had it with football. Now for those of you who are not particularly football fans, you may be interested to know that Barry Foster comes out of Duncanville and currently lives in the city of Dallas. During the early years of this decade, Barry Foster was one of the premier running backs in professional football. Between 1992 and 1994, he won an American Football Conference rushing championship. He went to the Pro Bowl twice as a Pittsburgh Steeler.
But this past spring, the Steelers surprised him by trading him to a brand new club, the Carolina Panthers. During the recently ended preseason, Barry Foster only ran the ball 22 times for the Panthers, and he sat out the last preseason game with swelling in his knee. Then the Panthers shocked him by releasing him in their final roster cut.
Now Barry Foster is a commodity, and he was immediately approached by at least six professional football teams. He tried out for three of them: for San Francisco, for Houston, and for Cincinnati. And it was the Cincinnati Bengals who liked what they saw the most. And they offered him an upfront signing bonus of $300,000 and a salary for the year of $700,000. And if your mental calculators are going rapidly here, that’s a one million dollar contract for a single year.
This past October the 23rd, only a couple of weeks ago, Barry Foster signed with the Bengals. On Tuesday, October 23rd was a Monday. On Tuesday he reported to the Bengals. On Wednesday he worked out with the Bengals. And guess what? On Thursday he left camp and came back to Dallas, Texas. And he told the media, “I thought I wanted to hear the cheers of a crowded stadium, but after that one day in Cincinnati, it confirmed what I had felt after I was released by Carolina. I was only fooling myself that I really wanted to play.”
Now in case you’re wondering, Barry Foster did in fact return his signing bonus of $300,000. And at a press conference in the office of his agent, he said this. He said, “I just didn’t have the desire to get out and compete at a professional level.” He says, “When you lose that desire, it says you sometimes get hurt and you hurt the chances of your team being successful. So I felt that the best thing for me was just to walk away from the game, just to walk away from the game.”
Now frankly, my hat is off to Barry Foster because here is a guy who faced honestly his own desires. And in fact, he was willing to give up a one million dollar contract to pursue a new way of life.
And most of you out in the audience this morning know that your speaker is not particularly a football fan. So when it comes to football, I can sort of understand why Barry Foster did what he did. But will you not agree with me that walking away from the football field is a whole lot different and a whole lot less important than walking away from that competitive field that we can call the field of Christian testimony?
Do you know that there are lots and lots of Christians who were at one time out on that field? They were involved in the game. They were competing for Jesus Christ and to make Jesus Christ known. And somewhere along the line, they lost their desire. They lost their desire, and they turned their back on that competition.
And because that is a danger that can confront any one of us this morning, I would like to leave you with a very simple warning, a very simple exhortation. My warning and my exhortation is this: Don’t walk away from the game. And that just happens to be the title of my message to you today: Don’t Walk Away from the Game.
Now as hard as it may be for some of you to visualize this, I can clearly recall years ago when I was still a teenager out on the pitcher’s mound at the hardball field behind Buchanan School in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where of course as you know I grew up.
Now I was one of the pitchers on a sandlot baseball hardball team. We were not in a league, but we played other sandlot teams from various places around the city. And on this particular day, it was my turn to pitch. And if my recollection serves me correctly, my brother David was catching. So that in baseball jargon, our battery for the day was Hodges and Hodges.
Now this happened to be one of my better days as a pitcher. I was not as wild as I usually was, although I was just wild enough to give the batters a little bit of discomfort when they stepped into the batting box. And my recollection tells me this, that it was I think in the last or next to last at-bat of the opposing team. We were either tied with them or even with them. I had two men out. I had runners at second and third. And all I needed to do to get out of the inning was to retire the batter who was at the plate.
Well, he hit one of my pitches, and it was a ground ball going out to shortstop. Now our shortstop that day was a friend of my brother’s named Curly Knight. We all liked him, and in my opinion he was a very good shortstop for a sandlot baseball team. So as I saw the ball going to him, I thought this is probably the last out.
Guess what happened, folks? The ball went under his glove. He never touched it. It went between his legs and out into center field for a base hit. And both of the runners scored. We were now behind, and we never caught up. And Z. Hodges turned from a potential winning pitcher into a grief-stricken losing pitcher.
Now you won’t be surprised that my mind took a snapshot of that ball going through Curly Knight’s legs. I can see it just as clearly this morning as if it had happened last week. And no kidding. Now I can hardly remember anything else about the game. Most of the other details are vague to me. But I just see that ball going out there, going past me, going under his glove, and going out into center field.
And you know that’s the way our mind does when we encounter frustrations, when we encounter problems and difficulties. You know we focus, we almost totally focus on the problem, on the difficulty or the frustration. And somehow or other everything else around us has a tendency to fade into the background.
And if there was ever a man who had a right to focus on his own problems to the exclusion of everything else, that man was surely our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of whom we’ve read just a few moments ago in our passage of scripture.
Please remember that Jesus is being led out of the city of Jerusalem and in the direction of the hill called Calvary where He will be crucified. He has not had any sleep, folks, since Wednesday night. On Thursday evening He had eaten His last supper with His disciples. He had gone out into the garden to pray. And after He was finished praying, there was that mob of people and soldiers and chief priests and scribes. They put Him under arrest. They led Him to the house of the high priest where He stood before the high priest. The high priest sent Him to the judgment hall of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Pilate sent Him to Herod the king, and Herod the king sent Him back to Pontius Pilate who then condemned Him to death by crucifixion.
And from the other Gospels we also learned that after that it happened He was whipped so that His back was covered with welts and bleeding bruises. Then He was taken to the barracks of the soldiers. And there in the barracks they made fun of Him. They put on Him the purple robe. They put a crown of thorns on His head. They blindfolded Him. They smacked Him in the face and challenged Him to prophesy which one of them was slapping Him. When they were finished with that, they re-clothed Him in His own clothes. They laid on the back of Jesus the heavy cross which He had to carry through the streets of the city of Jerusalem.
And these are only a few minutes before the incident that we read about this morning that they relieved Him of the cross. They took it off His back and put it on the back, you remember, of Simon of Cyrene who followed Jesus bearing Jesus’ cross.
If ever there was a man who had a right to focus on his troubles, that was Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how tired He was? Bone weary. No food since Thursday night. No sleep since Wednesday night. His back bruised and beating. He had a right, my friends, to focus on His own problem.
And then following Him in the crowd were some women who were weeping and lamenting for Him. Now these were probably not women that He knew because it was a custom in those days for Jewish women to go out to executions and to weep for whoever was being executed, however unworthy they might be. If nobody else came to weep for them, these women would weep for that. And apparently it was believed that that was a good work that God took note of and one credited in favor with God.
And here were these women weeping as Jesus is being led to execution, just as they had often done at other executions. And if ever they had a right to weep at an execution, this was it. Don’t you agree? I mean the one who was being led away to execution is the only person who ever lived who never committed a sin, much less a crime. And more than that, the one who was being led away to execution was the Son of God. He was the Creator of all things. He was the future King of Israel. They had every reason to weep. Are you with me?
Listen, Jesus had every reason to focus on his problems, right? And the women had every reason to weep for Him, right? And that is why the words of Jesus are so very, very surprising, so completely unexpected.
For our text tells us that He turned to these women and He didn’t say to them, “Ladies, thank you very much for sharing my grief. Thank you for weeping for me. Thank you for feeling sorry for me in this horrible, horrible situation in which I find myself.” He didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything even close to that. Did you notice what He did say? He said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Do not weep for me.”
Isn’t it obvious that Jesus was not absorbed in his own problems? He was not preoccupied with Himself. He’s not drowning in a stream of self-pity. He says, “Don’t weep for me.”
And in this, my friends, He is our model. He is our example. He is our leader. He is showing us how to bear the problems that we face.
Most of you will remember Mrs. Vivian Connor, the elderly lady who attended our Lord’s Supper for so many years when we were meeting over on Leno Street. And since my own mother was living up in Pennsylvania, as many of you know, Mrs. Connor took a kind of a motherly concern for me. And if I were to come to a meeting without an appropriate jacket on when it was cold outside, I would get Vivian Connor’s motherly rebuke that helped me to remember what my own mother would have told me in the same situation.
And we had a lot of good fellowship. I don’t know how many of you knew this, but Mrs. Connor was a baseball fan and she followed the Houston Astros. She knew where they were in the standings, who played for them. And she told me one time she prayed for the players, not to win I think, but to get saved.
You know, I will never forget standing in her hospital room as she was lying in bed. She was dying of cancer. And I don’t clearly recall whether I was just talking to her or reading a text of Scripture or something like that. But what I do recall was that my voice cracked and I felt my eyes beginning to get teary.
You know what Mrs. Connor said to me? I’ll never forget it. She said, “Now, now, we’re not going to have any of that in this room. Now, now, we’re not going to have any of that in this room.”
You see, Mrs. Connor knew where she was going. She had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of everlasting life. She believed God’s hand was upon her trial and her sickness. And she was prepared to meet her Savior. And she was saying to me, wasn’t she, “Don’t weep. Don’t weep for me. I’m happy.”
As that Christian man or that Christian woman who in times of trial is not running all over the place looking for sympathy, looking for compassion, looking for tears. Happiness. The Christian man or the Christian woman who in the midst of trial is so confident about the goodness of God that no matter what that trial may be, they can say, “Do not weep for me.”
But that wasn’t all that Jesus said to the daughters of Jerusalem. That wasn’t all by any means. He said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the women who have no children. Blessed are the wombs that have never borne children. Blessed are the breasts that have never nursed children.’ In those days they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’”
Jesus says, “You don’t need to cry for me, but there’s something you need to be deeply concerned about. And that is the future of this nation and it’s the future that you face and your children face.”
And of course, my friends, the words that Jesus spoke were fulfilled within that century. Jesus we believe was crucified in 33 A.D. Thirty-three more years passed, and in the year 66 A.D. a war broke out between the rebellious Jewish nation and the Roman Empire. At first the Jews seemed to be doing well. But after the full might of the Roman soldiery was brought to bear upon the nation, they were crushed. And after a siege of the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., that city fell and most of it was destroyed. And the Jewish temple to God was burned to the ground.
And one Jewish historian who was alive at that time tells us that in that war approximately one million Jews perished and lost their lives. Jesus is saying you don’t have any need to be concerned for me. But my vision of the future is that you should be concerned for yourself and for your children.
And of course the words that Jesus spoke implied that not only those women but also their children and the people of Israel should turn to God. And what they needed most of all was to put faith in God’s Savior who was there at that moment heading toward the cross where He would die for their sins.
Don’t you see that Jesus was not preoccupied with Himself? He was concerned for other people in the midst of his darkest and most dangerous hour. And in this too He is our model. For we are to leave our problems in the hands of God. We are to trust in His ability to handle them. And we are to be concerned for the unsaved people who are all around us.
I think in this audience this morning it is likely that almost everyone has relatives who are not saved. You have friends who are not saved. You have fellow workers who are not saved. And just as Jesus shared his vision of the future with these women, so God calls you to share your vision of the future with the unsaved people round about you.
Now you say, “Zane, it’s different in my case. I mean Jesus did have the ability to see the future, but I don’t have any ability to see the future. I don’t have a vision of the future.” Oh yes you do. You do have a vision of the future. You know where to find it, right here on the pages of God’s prophetic Word.
Can any of us forget the striking words written by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation? He says,
I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth like a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a wind. And every mountain and every island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the mountains of the earth. And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?’
Are you aware the events that I have just described in the words of the Apostle John may be no more than seven years away? They are the climax of that last great seven-year period which we call the Great Tribulation. When that period begins, the Lord Jesus Christ descends from heaven, and all of us who have believed in Him for eternal life will be caught up to meet Him in the air. And everyone who has not believed in Him will go through that period. And if they survive to the end, they’ll see the things that I told you about.
These words remind us of the words that Jesus spoke to the women. But these words were not fulfilled in 70 A.D. They lie in the future. And I’m wondering if you are warning people that you know and rub shoulders with each day about that.
Dr. H. A. Ironside was one of the best Bible teachers of the last generation. And on one occasion he was speaking in Stockton, California one night. And his message was on the coming of the Lord. And after he finished his message, he closed his eyes to lead in prayer. And while he was praying, he heard a woman get up and walk out of the auditorium. The way he knew it was a woman was that was back in the days when women’s skirts swished as they walked.
So when his prayer was over, he went out to the door to greet people. And he saw this young lady pacing back and forth in the lobby of the auditorium. And as soon as he got out there, this lady came up to him and she said, “How dare you pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’? I don’t want him to come. If he were to come, it would break in on all my plans. How dare you?”
Now Dr. Ironside was well known for being practical and down to earth. You know what he said to this woman? He said, “My dear young woman, Jesus is coming whether you want him to or not.”
And you know, you probably have friends and relatives who would rather He did not come because it would interfere with their personal plans. It would interfere with their lifestyles. And maybe what you need to be telling those unsaved friends and relatives is that Jesus is coming whether they want Him to or not.
You see, we must never be so caught up in our own problems and our own concerns that we forget about the desperate, desperate, desperate need of people that we meet every day.
And maybe our concern is best expressed in the final words that Jesus spoke to the daughters of Jerusalem in the very last verse of our passage. For Jesus says to these women, “If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”
You see, Jesus in the sight of God was a lot like a green, fruitful tree. He was so to speak the godly man of Psalm 1 of whom it is said that he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water who brings forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
But the nation of Israel was like a dry tree rooted into the ground but drawing no water. It was numb, bereft of leaves and fruit. It was just waiting for the axe to be laid to its roots for the tree to be cut down and thrown into the fire.
And Jesus is saying, “You can see for yourself what God allows to happen to those who are righteous. What do you imagine will happen to those who are unsaved and unrighteous?”
Years later Peter said this,
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. If it begins first with us, what shall be the end of those who do not obey the gospel?
Have you ever noticed that God’s people sometimes have a very hard time in life? Our good friend Louis is back from his second major surgery in I think three years. It’s amazing what God is pleased to send his people through in terms of trouble. But no matter how bad that is, let me assure you that the end of the unsaved person is far, far worse.
If they do these things in a green tree, what do you think will happen to the dry tree?
So you know what? Bearing witness to Jesus Christ is the most important game in town. The field of testimony to the Savior is the most important field of competition you can possibly be on. Are you out there playing the game? Then stick to it. Hold on. Don’t walk away from the game.
A number of years ago at the University of Nebraska, which is pretty well known for its football teams, an unusual incident happened. A Campus Crusade team of wrestlers came to campus. And the administration on campus allowed them to appear but would not allow them to give their testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And a lot of the students and some of the professors and a few of the newspapers were very upset about this. They couldn’t understand why people could praise homosexuality or promote radical politics or something else and they couldn’t speak for Jesus Christ.
And the newspaper called the Omaha World-Herald took the side of the Campus Crusade wrestlers. And they made fun in an editorial of the policy of the administration. And the headline on the editorial read like this: “Sit Down, Shut Up for Jesus.”
You know something? Some Christians have already done that. They sat down a long time ago, and they’ve shut up about Jesus Christ. And they’ve forgotten that one of our most wonderful privileges is to stand up and speak up for the Son of God, our glorious, wonderful and coming Savior.
Get with it, folks. Get on the field. Whatever you do, don’t walk away from the game.
Shall we pray?
Father, what a testimony we have in our hands to give to a desperately needy world. We don’t have to be preachers to do this. We just have to love the Lord Jesus Christ and be concerned for our friends and relatives who do not know him as yet. And our concern is heightened, Father, by our realization that at any time the Lord Jesus Christ may come back. Help us to get out there with your Word and stand up for our Savior. We ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.