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Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word.
We’re going to take a little detour this Lord’s Day and the next Lord’s Day from our consideration of the prophet Isaiah.
And this morning we’re going to consider a passage from the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 19, verses 28 through 44.
And you’ll find that beginning on page 1044 in your few Bibles,
again at Luke chapter 19, verses 28 through 44.
If you’re friends here, with reverence and awe, the word of our God.
And when he had said these things, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem.
When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet,
he sent two of the disciples saying,
And they brought it to Jesus.
And throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives,
the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice
for all the mighty works that they have seen, saying,
Glory in the highest.
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.
He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,
And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation.
Your friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Please join me as we ask for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of this word.
Almighty God, Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for sending your Son Jesus Christ to be our Savior.
And we thank you, Lord Jesus, for your triumphal entry and your compassion for Jerusalem.
Lord, we ask that as we consider this portion of Holy Scripture,
that your Spirit would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your Word.
We ask, O Lord, that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant,
the grace to declare and speak forth the truths of your Word from this passage with clarity and power and unction by your Spirit.
Be with us now and bless us, we pray, and open our minds and hearts.
In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
Amen.
You may be seated.
Dear ones, the title of my sermon this morning is Joyful Praise and the Weeping King.
And if you’re following along in your sermon outline,
I’d especially like to direct the young people’s attention to the three key words to be listening for in my sermon.
Those words are Messiah, King, and Savior.
Messiah, King, and Savior.
Well, my dear listeners, the event that is recorded for us by Luke in our text for this Lord’s Day morning
marks the beginning of what has often been called Passion Week.
In other words, the week leading up to our Lord’s crucifixion on the cross of Calvary.
The Lord Jesus, you see, had set His face to go up to Jerusalem to the astonishment of even His own disciples.
Jesus, you see, knows what He is going to face in Jerusalem.
He knows what awaits Him in Jerusalem.
For He knows that He was sent to this earth by God the Father in order to save His people from their sins.
As we are reminded back in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 1, verse 21,
where the angel says to Joseph, You are to call His name Jesus, for He will what?
He will save His people from their sins.
The name Jesus, Yeshua, means the Lord is salvation.
And so the Lord Jesus knew that the reason He was born was so that ultimately one day He might die upon the cross as a perfect sacrifice for sin.
So He is going to Jerusalem.
He is a man on a mission, and He is going there that He might lay down His life for His sheep.
Beloved in Christ, this solemn event of our Lord’s approach to Jerusalem, riding on the back of a colt, the foal of a donkey,
this is an event that is often called Christ’s triumphal entry.
It is an event that is full of redemptive and spiritual significance and truth.
Here is truth that teaches us much, you see, about our Savior, Jesus Christ,
and teaches us much about the saving work that He came into this world to accomplish.
And so for my sermon this morning, I want to have us consider some of the important lessons that we can learn from this significant event in the life of our Lord.
And I would first of all direct your attention to verses 28 through 36 of our passage for today.
And the first thing that I would point out from this passage is that Jesus the Messiah is presented here as the humble anointed King who comes in peace.
Jesus the Messiah is the humble anointed King who comes in peace.
Verse 28 we’re told this, and when He had said these things, these things being the things that were recorded in the previous section,
He went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. He’s going up to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is at a higher elevation than where He had been.
So He’s going up to Jerusalem, and it says in verse 29, when He drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, which were very close to the city of Jerusalem,
at the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of His disciples saying,
Go into the village in front of you, where on entry you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
So He sends two unnamed disciples to go and find this colt and untie it and bring it to Him that He might use it.
But you may have noticed in verse 30, there’s an interesting detail that Jesus gives when He gives them these instructions.
He says, Go into the village where on entry you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat.
Why is it that Jesus needs a colt on which no one has ever yet sat?
Why did the donkey have to be one that had never before been ridden?
Well, the answer to that question, beloved, is because an animal that had never been used before was especially fitting for a sacred event,
such as our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
And you know, this follows a Biblical pattern, actually.
If you’re familiar with the scriptures, if you are a good Bible student, you may have noticed that we often find it to be the case in the Bible
that previously unused animals or previously unused items are often used to symbolize something that is especially sacred or holy,
or they’re used for sacred or holy purposes.
And to give you just an example from the Old Testament, let’s briefly turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 21.
Deuteronomy chapter 21, and I’m going to read the first, I think the first four verses, but focus especially on verse three.
Deuteronomy chapter 21, let me begin reading here.
And here’s a scenario where in the promised land what the Israelites are to do,
if they find someone who’s been slain and there’s an unsolved murder, it says this,
if in the land, this would be the holy land, the land that God has given to his people,
if in the land that the Lord your God has given you to possess, someone is found slain, lying in the open country,
and it is not known who killed him, then your elders and your judges shall come out,
and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities, and then especially notice verse three,
and the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked,
and that has not pulled in a yoke, and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to the valley with running water,
which is neither plow nor sown, and so forth, and they should break the heifer’s neck and sacrifice it to make atonement for the land.
So in other words, here a heifer which had never been worked or yoke was to be used for the sacred purpose
of making atonement for the land in the case of an unsolved murder in the holy land, the promised land.
And we see this pattern in other places in scriptures. We see it even in the conception and birth of our Savior.
Consider the conception of our Savior. The Lord Jesus, we are told in scripture,
was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, a womb that had never before been used to carry a child,
and therefore a womb that was suitable for the sacred purpose of burying the Son of God incarnate.
And think also of our Lord’s tomb. Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb.
A tomb in which Jesus was buried was the tomb that had never before been used.
You get the picture, don’t you? And so it makes sense that Jesus would direct his disciples to find a donkey on which no one has ever yet sat.
The very first one who would sit on this donkey, what a privileged donkey this was, was the Son of God incarnate.
What is the significance of this action, though, that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey?
Well, first of all, by this action of riding into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, the foal of a donkey,
Jesus was making a deliberate symbolic claim to be the Messiah.
Now, I’ll explain this. I’ll flesh this out in just a few minutes.
But basically, you need to understand that what Jesus is doing here, through this symbolic action,
he’s basically shouting out, I’m the Messiah. He is saying that without speaking a word.
He is saying that through this symbolic action.
We’re told, again, that they found the colt, they took it to Jesus,
and it says, verse 35, they brought it to Jesus, and growing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
As he rode, they spread their cloaks on the road.
People recognized what Jesus was signifying by this action,
for they respond by spreading their cloaks on the road, welcoming him as they would welcome royalty.
And as he was drawing near, already on the way down Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice.
They got very excited. They began to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.
And what do they say in praise to the Lord?
He actually quotes from Psalm 118.
Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
They recognize that Jesus is making a claim to be the Messiah.
Now Jesus, throughout his earthly ministry, was often very secretive about his Messiahship.
He didn’t usually come right out and directly say that I am the Messiah of the Son of God.
Sometimes he did, but oftentimes he left it up to inference because he did the works of the Messiah.
He accepted the worship that God incarnate alone would be worthy to accept and so forth.
But he’s claiming by this action to be the Messiah.
Now what does that term Messiah mean? Children, do you know what the word Messiah means?
The Greek word Christos is where we get the word Christ from. Christ and Messiah mean the same thing.
These words mean anointed one.
Jesus is the promised Messiah, the anointed one, promised by God in the Old Testament scriptures.
As the Messiah, he is the anointed Davidic king, promised by the Old Testament scriptures.
You see, the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Divine Son of God in human flesh,
not only is he the Word made flesh who came to dwell in our midst,
not only is he Emmanuel, God with us, but as the Word made flesh, as Emmanuel, God with us,
he is also the Christ, the Messiah, our anointed prophet, priest, and king.
And as our Redeemer, he holds a three-fold office as our prophet, priest, and king.
And his kingly office is brought out in this particular passage.
You may say, okay, Pastor, I understand what the term Messiah means,
but how does this passage demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah?
How does this action of riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey,
how is that a declaration of his Messiahship?
Well, the answer to that is that this act was a direct fulfillment of Zechariah 9, verse 9,
which was read earlier in the service, a prophecy which predicted that the promised Messiah
would come to Jerusalem, as the verse says, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
So, friends, by engaging in this action, our Lord Jesus was, in essence,
claiming by this symbolic action to be the messianic fulfillment of this messianic prophecy
recorded for us by the prophet Zechariah.
Dear listener, let me ask you, do you believe in your heart of hearts
that Jesus of Nazareth is in truth the Messiah or Christ of God,
that he is the anointed one promised by God in the Old Testament Scriptures,
the one who would come to this earth to be the Savior of sinners like me and like you?
Do you accept him as the divine Son of God in human flesh,
the only God-appointed Savior for sinners like you and like me?
He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In John’s Gospel, at the end of John’s Gospel,
one of the purpose statements that he gives for writing his Gospel, in John 20, verses 30 and 31,
John writes, now Jesus did many other signs, miraculous signs and wonders and miracles,
in the presence of the disciples who were eyewitnesses to these miracles.
Jesus did many other signs which are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may believe what?
That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus of Nazareth was no ordinary man.
He is the God-man of the Word made flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary.
He lived a life of humility and poverty and servanthood,
and he did so to be our Redeemer and our gracious, saving King.
And if you believe, if you trust Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah,
the anointed prophet, priest and king, the Son of God,
if you trusted him for salvation, you will have life in his name.
So say of the Scriptures, do you believe?
May God give you the grace to believe this day.
So by this action, Jesus is implicitly claiming to be the promised Messiah.
But also, friends, by this action of riding into Jerusalem on the back of a colt,
the fall of a donkey, Jesus was also symbolizing the kind of Messiah that he was sent to be.
Now when the Pharisees and the religious leaders,
when they see all of the crowds celebrating Jesus, rejoicing in him, praising him,
how do they respond?
It says, some of the Pharisees and the crowd said,
and teacher, rebuke your disciples.
But Jesus refused to do that.
He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
Jesus recognizes that the crowd has rightly recognized him as the promised Messiah,
which he is again claiming to be.
However, there’s a twist to this plot.
You see, most of the Israelites in the time of our Lord Jesus
were not looking for the kind of Messiah that Jesus ended up leaving.
Most of the Israelites in the time of Jesus were looking for a political Messiah,
one who would come in military might and strength to conquer the Romans
and to reestablish Israel as a powerful, earthly, political kingdom,
like it was in the days of the mighty King David and his son Solomon.
Friends, our Lord Jesus did not choose to ride into Jerusalem on top of a war horse,
on top of a war steed.
No, he said our Lord chose to ride into the city on the back of a donkey.
Not only was this action a symbolic action in fulfillment of Zechariah 9, verse 9,
and thus a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy,
not only was this action of Jesus in riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey,
not only was it a claim to be the Messiah,
it was also a claim to come in peace, not in war.
Again, this shows us that Jesus came not to be a conquering political Messiah,
but to be a spiritual Messiah,
a Savior who would save his people from their sins,
not a Savior who would save them from the political tyranny of the Romans.
Now dear friends, you might say, oh yeah, our Lord’s Jewish contemporaries,
they were clueless, I mean, how could they not have known, how could they not have seen?
But as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Or as to quote from the scriptures, there’s nothing new under the sun.
You see, my friends, the Jews of our Lord’s time, his fellow Jews,
were not the only ones who were looking for an essentially earthly Messiah.
Even today, it seems that many professing Christians look to Jesus as a Savior
who will bless them with earthly peace, with economic security,
with material prosperity and personal health and personal happiness.
Many professing Christians today want a Jesus who will serve them as a personal cosmic bellhop,
not a resurrected and glorified Lord and sovereign King who is able to make them right with God,
who is able to purify them from their sins, who is able to conform them into the ethical image of Christ.
A resurrected Lord and King who summons his children to serve him.
Now Jesus graciously serves us with his mercy, his forgiveness,
but he calls us as his redeemed children to take up his yoke and follow him,
to confess him as Lord and to live under the implications of his worship.
But friends, the popularity of false Gospels, false teachings, for example, like the prosperity Gospel,
that is just one evidence of the fact that many today, just like many of the Jews in the time of our Lord,
are looking for an earthly Messiah.
A Messiah who will address the issues primarily or if not exclusively of this present age.
A Messiah who will give them peace, prosperity, comfort, health and happiness.
But my dear Christian friends, the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem on Passion Week
shows you why your Savior came to this earth.
He did not come to give you a peaceful life, but instead to secure your peace with Almighty God.
Although I will say that if you are at peace with God, that tends towards a more peaceful life.
But he came to make you, to secure your peace with God the leader.
He did not come to make you happy, but to make you holy.
Although again, the way of holiness is ironically the way to greatest happiness.
He did not come to make you comfortable, but to make you Christ-like.
He did not come to prosper you, but to justify you by his merit and sacrifice alone.
He did not come to serve you as a cosmic bellhop.
He came to die for you as the humble King who has come in the name of the Lord.
Beloved, take to heart the kind of Messiah our Lord Jesus Christ came to be
and receive him as that Messiah, the Messiah who came to save his people from their sins.
So we see the significance of this symbolic action.
Next, let’s consider the joyful reception of Jesus by the people.
This is the second main point of your outline, the joyful reception of Jesus by the people.
In verse 37 it says, as he was drawing near, drawing near to the city, already on the way down Mount of Olives,
the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice
for all the mighty works that they had seen.
What mighty works had they seen?
They had seen the Lord Jesus do things like heal the sick.
They had seen him give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb.
They had seen him raise up the paralyzed.
And they had also, recently, some of these mighty works would include things such as miracles
like the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
And so they’re rejoicing for all these mighty signs.
These are clearly the works of the Messiah.
So they’re excited.
The Messiah, the promised one, has finally come.
And so they cry out, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
But friends, I want you to remember, there’s great irony here.
It is very likely the case that many of those who on this occasion were praising the Lord Jesus
as the King who comes in the name of the Lord,
some of these very shortly would be crying out, crucify him, crucify him.
Why?
Because, again, they’re looking to him.
They are expecting him to come into the city and perhaps gather an army
and perhaps conquer the Romans, delivering them from the yoke of Rome.
So they are right to praise him as the promised Messiah and to recognize him as such.
That’s why Jesus refuses to correct them or rebuke them.
But on the other hand, Jesus also leaps over Jerusalem
because he understands that they do not recognize the time of their visitation.
They don’t understand the spiritual significance of what’s going on here.
As William Hendrickson comments on verses 39 and 40,
Jesus approved of their praise only to the extent to which
one great truth was being proclaimed, namely that of his Messiahship.
So again, the people were certainly joyful, but they were misguided in their joy.
They did not understand that the cross would come before the crown for the Lord Jesus.
Friends, consider how fickle and selfish is the human heart.
We are so willing to praise and extol God when it seems like he’s following our agenda.
We’re so willing to praise and extol God when he seems to be following our ideas
of how things should be done and when things are comfortable for us and knowing our way.
But when it turns out that God has other plans than what we might have envisioned,
we grumble at his difficult providences, and we can even become resentful and bitter.
Oh friends, by God’s grace, may we learn to rejoice in the Lord always,
in all circumstances, whether in want or in joy.
Whatever our circumstances may be, may we always remember that wonderful promise
contained in Romans chapter 8, verse 28, and I know that for many of you,
this is perhaps one of your life verses if you have a life verse, Romans 8, 28.
We know that for those who love God, all things, not just the good things, not just the easy things,
all things work together for good for those who are called according to his promise.
And so that leads me to my final point.
As we reflect upon verses 41 through 44, what begins as a joyful scene,
a scene exploding with praise and adoration for God, turns into a scene of sorrow.
As we see the crowds rejoice over their messianic king,
we also see the king weeping over unrepentant Jerusalem.
So let us, in closing, we hold our Savior’s sorrow over unrepentant Jerusalem.
Our Savior’s sorrow over unrepentant Jerusalem.
It says in verse 41,
And when he drew near and saw the city, and he would have a very good view
from the Mount of Olives coming down of the city of Jerusalem.
When he sees the city, how does he respond? What does he say?
Does he say, ah, now I’m going to get rid of those nasty junk tops, those Romans?
Does he say, now, now I’m going to sit on my throne?
He wept. He wept over it.
And what does he say? He wept saying, verse 42,
Would that you, even you, here he is speaking from his prophetic office,
and he says to Jerusalem, would that you, even you, had known on this day
the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.
And then he gives a prediction, a prophecy.
For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you
and surround you and have you in on every side and tear you down to the ground,
you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you,
because you did not know the time of your visitation.
What’s he predicting there?
He’s predicting the brutal, horrifying fall of Jerusalem by the Romans,
which took place in 1788. If you’ve done any historical study of that horrible event,
the city of Jerusalem and thousands upon thousands of Jews were slaughtered,
brutally slaughtered by the Roman army.
Jerusalem was a bloodbath, and it was destroyed.
And Jesus, looking ahead with his prophetic vision, saw that that was coming,
and he weeps over the city.
Again, to quote from Dr. Hendrickson, he says of the crowds,
he says, to the extent to which the people recognize in Jesus the long-awaited Messiah, they are right.
That is why he refuses to grant the request of the Pharisees that he should rebuke his disciples.
On the other hand, to the extent to which the shouters misinterpret the nature of Christ’s Messiahship,
they are wrong. It is therefore not strange that when Jesus comes inside of Jerusalem,
he bursts into tears. He knows, and at this time even openly predicts,
what will happen to the city, its temple, and its population,
because his spiritual message had not been accepted.
What did we learn here about our Lord Jesus?
We learned here, friends, that Jesus, our Savior, our Messiah,
he is not a cold, harsh Messiah.
This prediction demonstrates that Jesus is a compassionate Savior,
a Savior who weeps over the unrepentant who persists in their sin,
a Savior who would rather that the wicked turn from their wicked ways and live than that they be destroyed.
And so we see the heart of compassion.
Dear listener, if you’re here today, or if you’re listening over the internet,
and you’re thinking, Pastor, I’ve got some really serious sin in my life,
and I’m sure that the Lord would never want me, that he would not care for me,
think about this. Jesus is a compassionate Savior who welcomes the prodigal of home.
So do not keep arms distanced from the Savior.
Run into his arms, receive and rest upon him. He is a compassionate Savior.
His mercies are new every morning. His steadfast love is great.
Run to him, trust in him. He will receive you. He will forgive you as you come to him in faith,
trusting in his merits and repentant for your sin.
So this prediction demonstrates in Christ a compassionate Savior.
But this prediction also demonstrates the omniscience of our Savior.
We see with respect to his divine nature, our Lord Jesus Christ as God knows all things,
which is why he is able to predict future events like the fall of Jerusalem.
The higher critical scholars of the Bible will look at passages like this
and will date the writing of these books based on things like this,
and many of them assume that we know that predictive prophecy is impossible.
So this must have been written sometime after 70 AD,
and the early Christians must have read it back into the lips of Jesus.
But friends, we must reject such skeptical and naturalistic approaches to texts like this.
There’s good reason to believe, by the way, that Luke’s Gospel was written before 70 AD,
but we won’t go into those details this morning.
What we have here is apostolic eyewitness testimony.
Luke himself was not an apostle, but he makes it clear in his opening chapter
that he consulted many eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, such as apostles,
in order to construct his narrative, and of course the Holy Spirit inspired him to write that which he wrote.
So friends, Jesus shows his omniscience as a divine savior here in this passage.
He’s a compassionate savior. He’s also an omniscient savior who knows everything and knows us all through and through.
But this prediction also underscores the fact that ultimate destruction awaits those who persist in rejecting Christ,
those who, like many of our Lord’s contemporaries, closed their eyes, put their hands over their ears,
and refused to recognize the time of their visitation when God the Son in the flesh came to his own,
and his own received God for the most part.
There was a remnant among the Jews who did come to believe that many rejected him.
But praise God, now the Gospel has gone out into the world that whoever comes to Christ will not perish but have everlasting life.
But we need to understand Jesus is weeping because he knows the faith of those who will persist in their impenitence.
In verse 42, again, it says,
The crowd did not know the things that would bring them peace.
They did not understand that Jesus came to this earth as the prince of peace,
the one who would die in order to secure peace between a holy God and a sinful humanity.
Again, my dear listener, do you have peace with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Do you know the things that make for peace?
Do you know Jesus Christ as your prince of peace?
In the Gospel, he offers himself fully and freely to you.
Turn to him, rest in him, receive him today.
And then rejoice in him as we join our voices with the voices of the crowd saying,
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
Heavenly Father, our sovereign and eternal God,
we thank you that Jesus is indeed the prince of peace and he is our prince of peace.
We thank you, O heavenly Father, that you in your grace and mercy alone,
not because we deserve it, not because of our worthiness, but by your grace alone,
you have caused us to be in peace with you.
You have granted us the grace to hear the good news of Jesus, to believe and receive him.
And thus we stand in grace and in peace with you.
So help us, Lord, to celebrate Jesus the prince of peace during this season and indeed always.
And help us to bear faithful testimony to the good news of peace that comes through Jesus our Lord.
In his name we pray, and all of God’s people say, Amen.
As we close our time today, let’s rise.