In the early 1870's there was a very famous evangelist who traveled over to London and began to have campaigns throughout that city and the Lord really honored his ministry with many coming to faith in Christ.

Some of the local pastors were a little jealous about the situation and wanted to know why he had so much success preaching the Gospel in their city. So one day some of these pastors decided to go speak to this evangelist and try to figure out his secret. What was his life like that enabled him to be so successful and so used of the Lord in evangelism? So these men went up to his hotel room and knocked on his door. As the evangelist opened the door, the pastors greeted him saying, "Mr. Moody, we would like to have a word with you. You came to London, you've got a sixth grade education, you speak terrible English, your sermons are very, very simple, yet thousands of people are being converted and we want to know the secret, why?"

So Mr. Moody, being a gracious man, invited them to come into his hotel room. They walked into the room and he asked them to move over to the window and the pastors did so. Mr. Moody said, "Now I want you to tell me what you see when you look out the window."

The first pastor looked out and said, "Well, I see a park down there and there are some children playing around and having a good time."

Mr. Moody asked, "Is there anything else?"

"No, that's basically it," the pastor replied.

The second pastor went over to the window and said, "I see about the same thing except there's an older couple walking hand in hand enjoying the evening."

Finally the third pastor went to the window. He said that he saw about the same thing. He also noticed a young couple in love looking googol eyed at each other.

Curiously they asked, "Mr. Moody, when you look out the window, what do you see?"

Tears began to well up in his eyes, go down his cheeks, drop over his gray beard, and fall onto the floor. One of the pastors was very curious and said, "Mr. Moody, Mr. Moody, What are you looking at? What do you see?"

When I look out the window I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior, Jesus Christ."

On this Palm Sunday I'd like us to spend a few moments considering another person who wept over a city - The person I have in mind is Jesus Christ Himself - The time is also Palm Sunday - The first in history. The setting is as He approached the city of Jerusalem, perhaps from a hillside looking over the city, or perhaps in the city after looking upon it.

This morning I would like to invite you to weep with Jesus.

I. Emotion

When we mention weeping we may think of expressing emotions. We do not all do so in the same manner and some have the idea that men do not have emotions. Some think that men should not cry. Let me remind you that this passage is not the only account in the New Testament of Jesus weeping. Another instance may be more widely known because it is the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept." I know that many of you have memorized that one, right? The occasion of this weeping of Jesus you may recall was the weeping of Jesus' good friend, Lazarus.

You might ask why I would invite you to weep with Jesus? What emotions might be involved in this story from the life of Jesus Christ? Recall the context of that first Palm Sunday. I assume that it was a very emotionally charged experience. To a cheering crowd Jesus begins to enter Jerusalem. The more typical mode of transportation for Jesus was walking, but on this occasion He was riding a borrowed colt as it had been prophesied. He was given a grand welcome and people threw their coats on the streets and waved palm branches as they cheered, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna." Of course, this upset some of the Pharisees who asked Jesus to get His disciples under control. His response was, "If they kept quiet the very stones would cry out."

Then Luke tells us that as the city came into view Jesus wept over it. While it seemed at the moment that Jesus was being received as the King, He ands His teaching had not been widely received and He knew that soon He would need to lay down His life for the salvation of these people and the generation to come. Jesus knew that they needed a savior to pay the penalty for their sins and the mantle fell on Him.

II. Empowerment

Another answer to why weep with Jesus may be for empowerment. Jesus loved the people, even though they disappointed Him again and again. He also loved His Father and was willing to follow through on the plan decided beforehand. Jesus had not come to be an earthly political king, but to rule over a kingship that was not of this earth. As Jesus yielded to the plan He and His Father had previously set in place He was going to demonstrate supreme power. Perhaps you remember the reply of Jesus when Pilate told Him that he had the authority to pardon or crucify Jesus. Jesus answered, "You don't have one shred of authority over Me except what has been given you from heaven."

While Jesus and His disciples were going through a very painful experience in the next few days Jesus knew that His sacrificial death would break the power of sin and death. With His resurrection, Jesus' followers would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the love of Jesus Christ that is able to transform sinners into disciples.

Perhaps not many Christians weep with Jesus today. Do you? We may have our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but do we weep with compassion for the people all around us who may be headed for an eternity without Christ? They may even be good people, but persons who do not personally know Jesus Christ.

Conclusion:

Charlie Peace was a criminal. Laws of God or man curbed him not. Finally the law caught up with him and he was condemned to death. On the fateful morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses. The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading. "The Consolations of Religion," was the reply. Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about hell. Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-human being there, and yet dry-eyed, read of a pit that has not bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase without a tremor? Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, "You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings"? All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached. Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon.

"Sir," addressing the preacher, "if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!"

My friends, are you weeping with Jesus like Moody and willing to do what it takes to bring salvation to your family, your community, and beyond?

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