Hallelujah, what a Saviour. Well,
this morning I'd like to be reminded again of the glorious words of
the Lord Jesus Christ to the apostles on that fateful night,
and I want us to go and see one of these verses in Zechariah
that is promised to be one that the Holy Spirit says He will
He will guide you. He's called the Spirit of Truth,
John 16, 13. How be it when He, the Spirit
of Truth, is come? He will guide you into all truth. The truth of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is, the truth of who we are as sinners, the truth of
how God saves sinners, the truth of what is going on in this world,
the reality of what is going on in this world. For he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak. Don't you love that we have a
speaking God? Don't you love that the speaking God has caused
his words to be written down? The older I get, the more thankful
I am for a Bible, because the less I have to rely on my memory,
and the more I can just say, what did he say? Ah, yes, there
it is. He shall not speak of himself,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will
show you things to come. He shall glorify me for he shall
receive of mine. He will receive all of those
things of the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity to all of the Old
Testament scriptures and right through to his incarnation and
right through to what is happening today. He'll show it unto you. All things that the Father hath
are mine. Therefore said I that he shall
take of mine and shall show it unto you. Has he shown it unto you? He's
promised to show it unto you, hasn't he? He's promised. The
promise is that he will take the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ and he will show them. I'm so thankful that the Holy
Spirit has taken upon and has the glory of bringing that glorious
truth to bear into the hearts of all of God's people. We are,
we are so utterly dependent upon God to teach us. It is written in the prophets,
I just love this verse of scripture, John 6, 45, and they shall all
be taught of God. Every man that hath heard and
hath learned of the Father, they do what? They come to me, by
the Lord Jesus Christ, cause us to come to Him. Come to Him as He is and come
to Him in His glory. After we sing, I'd like us to
turn to Zachariah, but I want to bring, tell you what I'll
read the passage of scripture that I'd like to bring before
you in light of those scriptures there. Isaiah, when the Lord
causes Isaiah to use the same words as John 6.45, he says they'll
all be taught of God and great shall be the peace of my people. But in Zechariah 9 we have one
of these glorious descriptions of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says in Zechariah 9 verse 9, these famous verses, you've heard
them many times, they're in all the gospel accounts. It says,
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh unto
thee. He is just, and having salvation, lowly,
and riding upon an ass, upon a cult the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot
from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow
shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace unto the heathen."
That's us. to Gentiles, and his dominion
shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the
ends of the earth. And as for thee also, these daughters
of Jerusalem, By the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth
thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn ye to the stronghold, you
prisoners of hope. Even today do I declare that
I will render double unto thee. Tell the people of Jerusalem,
you speak peace to the children of God. You speak peace to my
children. Tell them their warfare is over.
They have received the Lord's hand double for all their sins. Rejoice and shout. Rejoice and shout. Rejoice and shout over the coming
King. My prayer is that the Lord Jesus
Christ would send the blessed spirit that he would take those
things and he'd show them to us this morning. The best way
of showing them is for us just to declare what they say. This
is what God says. We're going to sing again, number
51. I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus, trusting only thee. Thank
you. And we pray that these messages
that we have over this next little while will be messages that are
particularly poignant and relevant and prayerfully used of the Lord
for all of us to be participants in celebrating what he's done
in Ben and Tegan's life. And we're excited. rejoicing
with you. Okay, let's sing number 51. I
am trusting in your keys. Trusting you'll be clean. Trusting me Oh I am I'm trusting thee for everything. What a blessed place to be. What a blessed place to be where
we are made of God to be completely and utterly dependent upon the
Lord Jesus Christ for all things. I don't know about you, but I
have times in my life when I'm made to be particularly needy
and made to cry out in ways which I don't often do, and I'm so
thankful that My weeks are often characterized by having a couple
of days of feeling as if I've let the Lord down very badly
and feeling pretty despondent for a couple of days and then
for 20 odd years the Lord has somehow put me back together
again and put me back on my feet. path of many of God's servants
throughout time. And I pray that he has given
not just me a cause for rejoicing, but given us all a cause for
rejoicing and a cause for expectation. We have a glorious, glorious
God. And let's just read this verse
in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. Zechariah is the second last
book in the Old Testament, so if you go to Matthew and go back
to Malachi and then go back one more book and towards the end
of that you'll get this amazing prophecy of Zechariah. And the
prophecy of Zechariah was a prophecy brought to the people of Jerusalem
when they were troubled on many, many counts and troubled because
of their own sin and slackness in doing the things that God
had sent them back to Jerusalem to do. And they had enemies without
and enemies within and trials. And they seemed like a very,
very small remnant in a great big world that was very hostile
to them. But in the previous verses in
Zechariah 9, They are fulfilled historically in many, many ways
by the coming of Alexander to all those nations around and
Alexander the Great suppressed these nations. But in all of
these things, whatever we see physically, there is a spiritual
picture and the spiritual picture is the Lord Jesus Christ coming
to the heathen nations wherever they are in the world and saying
they are mine. those nations, mine will be gathered,
I'll gather my people to myself.' But when he gathers them, they
are gathered and they have this glorious description in verse
9, a daughter of Zion, a daughter of Jerusalem, Galatians 4 makes
it fairly abundantly clear that there is one mother to all of
the children of God and it's the Jerusalem that is above.
And so this is a picture of what was going to come in the days
of the Lord Jesus Christ's incarnation and it's a picture of what He
does in the gathering of His people and the revelation of
Himself to His people again and again and again. We have a King
who is coming. Revelation says that he's coming
now. The Old Testament says he's coming,
he's coming, he's coming. The Gospels say he's come, he's
come, he's come. The New Testament says he's coming
again. And Revelation says, behold,
he cometh. He's on his way back now. We don't know the hour when he's
coming, but we do know what the children of God will be declaring
when he does come. Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Make this known, make this publicly
known, and behold, behold, Gaze upon this, take careful
note of what God is saying. In the previous verse in chapter
eight, he says, I'll encamp, the verse eight of chapter nine,
I'll encamp about my house because of the army, because of him that
passes by, and because of him that returneth, and no oppressor
shall pass through them anymore, for now I have seen with mine
eyes. This is God the Father, what's
he seen? What is the focus of heaven's
glory right now? He sees his son. He sees his
son. This is what he sees. Rejoice,
rejoice greatly, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. And as you well know, this was
fulfilled. Thy King cometh under thee. He is just. These passages, this
passage of scripture, this glorious promise of God 550 years later
was fulfilled in Jerusalem in the most extraordinary circumstances,
wasn't it? Jesus called Jesus' triumphal
entry, and you know the story. He sends his disciples to go
and just gather this ass and the foal of this ass, and the
man gives them away, in a sense, gives them into the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ. What glorious sovereignty! Who
put the colt there? Who put it in the heart of that
man to give the colt and the ass to the Lord Jesus Christ? He comes, he comes, lowly and
riding on an ass. And the multitudes, they spread
their garments in the way, and others cut down branches from
trees and strawed them in the way, and multitudes that went
before and followed crying, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna, Lord save
us, Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem,
all the city was moved saying, who is this? It's a great question, isn't
it? Who is this? And the multitude
said, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee. He says in the other accounts
that they didn't know what was going on. He says, You don't
know what's happening now, but you will in time. These things
understood not his disciples at first in John chapter 12,
but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these
things were written of him. When the Lord Jesus Christ is
glorified, we'll see that all of the scriptures are written
of him. This is a glorious description. He rode into Jerusalem on an
ass. It was a physical entry, but
it has a glorious spiritual connotation for the children of God. Rejoice
greatly. Rejoice greatly. God's church is commanded to
rejoice. Rejoice always, I say again unto
you, rejoice. We are called upon to draw our
waters, to draw our sustenance out of the well of salvation
with joy. And what's the cause of joy? What's the cause of joy for the
languishing people? What's the cause of joy for those
who are struggling with what's in them and what's around them
and all of the circumstances of this world? Behold thy King
cometh. Behold thy King cometh. And Zerubbabel is talking about
one particular King. He's not talking about Alexander
the Great. He's not talking about the Caesars. He's not talking
about Zerubbabel, the King that was there at the time. He's talking
about there is just one King that comes and causes this rejoicing. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah,
the Prince. Behold thy King cometh. That's the best news you could
ever hear, isn't it? Behold, thy King cometh. Not that thy
King is at a distance from you, daughters of Jerusalem, daughters
of Zion. What causes the joy of the Church
of God? Thy King cometh. Not only does he come and bring
gladness and rejoicing, he brings shoutings of joy. This world
is a place of mourning and a place of heartache and a place of frustration,
isn't it? But he says to rejoice and be
exceedingly glad. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, and all the born-again children
of God are the citizens of this city, the city that rejoices,
the city that shouts in its rejoicing, the city of the great King. We
have a King. We have a King. The Lord Jesus
Christ is King. He is God Almighty. Nothing wriggles in this universe
without His direct command and control. Nothing moves in this
universe outside of that eternal covenant of grace from the foundation
of the world. That's that scroll. I just love
what Revelation 4 says. He took the scroll. He had the
right to go into the courts of heaven and take that scroll and
undo the seals on that scroll and unroll that scroll. That
scroll is the eternal covenant of grace for the salvation of
all people and the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ over all things
in this world. Jerusalem has a king. He's called
a great king. He's called king of kings and
lord of lords. He's the king of Israel. He's
the king of nations. He's the prince of the kings
of the earth. This man who comes lowly and
riding on an ass is king. Jesus is king. Jesus is God. But he's God with us. Listen to what? The Holy Spirit
causes these people to rejoice over. Behold, thy King cometh. Thy King cometh. The psalmist
in Psalm 149 verse two says, let the children of Zion be joyful
in their King. If this King is your King, and
he is King over everyone, but if he's my King in particular,
He's king over all the circumstances of my life. He's king who reigns
and rules. I'm gonna be joyful. I'm gonna
be joyful in this king, in the circumstances that come into
my life because of this king. Behold thy king cometh. This is a coming king. This is
a king that keeps on coming. I need him to come to me. I need
this King to come to me right now. You need this King to come
to you right now. We desperately need the blessed
Holy Spirit to come and to take the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ and reveal them to us. He comes in his word. He comes
by his spirit. He comes to where he gathers
his people together, in the house where he reveals himself. He
comes in saving grace. He comes in mercy to restore
us. good God to his people. He comes in great faithfulness. Don't you love the fact that
when you are reading this word, it doesn't matter what the world
does, it doesn't matter how long the time seems to us and seems
to the world, we can say Amen every time he says, I will, he
does. We've been waiting for 2,000 We are here in this particular
place and in this particular time to bear witness to this
particular king. Behold your king. Jesus Christ is King. People say, make Jesus Lord of
your life. Make Jesus King. I'm very, very
sorry. You can't make him anything.
And he was King a long, long time ago. And God has made this
Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. He's Lord. He's Lord over all. He's Lord over the living. He's
Lord over the dead. He's Lord over everything. But
I love this other description. He's a king, and he comes. I want to rejoice, and I want
to shout about a king who comes. And I want to rejoice over the
fact that he has a people in this world, and he says, you're
mine, you're mine. But isn't this a lovely description
of this king as he comes? He is just. He is righteous in everything he does. We love
those words of David when he says, although my house be not
so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant.
We love the fact that David on his dying pillow rejoiced in
God being king over all the circumstances in his life, even the things
that horrified him as he looked back on them. Just let me read
the first few verses of this. Now these be, 2 Samuel 23, these
be the last words of David. David was the son of Jesse, the
man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob,
the sweet psalmist of Israel said, the spirit of the Lord
spake by me. And his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock
of Israel spake to me, God spake, he that ruleth over men must
be just. He must be just. ruling in the
fear of God. And he shall be as the light
of the morning when the sun rises, even as a morning without clouds,
as a tender grass springing up out of the earth by the clear
shining after rain. And then David says, although
my house is not so with God, my house. every part of my house. My house, me. My house, my family. My house, my nation. It doesn't
matter which house it is, but I think he's particularly talking
about the house of David. And this is David, who's a sweet
psalmist of Israel, the one who God's particularly spoke to.
This is the cry, this is the rejoicing, and this is the shouting,
isn't it, of the children of Zion. It's the city of David. Although my house be not so with
God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant. Everlasting doesn't mean that
it had a beginning. It means it had no beginning
and no end. This is the covenant that saves
all of God's children throughout time. It's ordered in all things
and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire. Can you rejoice? Is that worth
shouting about? On your dying pillow, child of
God, I pray that it is that he has done all of this. He, he,
he. He's just. He is just. He must be just. He's a just God and a saviour. He's a just God and a saviour. He saves in perfect justice. And for the child of God, for
the believing child of God who rejoices and shouts over this
king, the justice of God is of great comfort to the children
God must be just. It was a just act of God the
Father to crush His Son when all of the sins of all of God's
people were laid on Him. God must be just. It is impossible
for a just God one of God's children ever again
for those sins. Justice got, it's just dessert. And Christ said, it is finished.
There's an article in your building, you could say it is finished,
you could translate it as or paraphrase it as, he is satisfied. And the justice of God, the very
character of God, the holiness and the justice of God is the
comfort of God's people. I don't know about you. I pray
that you, like the daughters of Zion, can rejoice and shout
over these things. He's just. The Lord Jesus Christ
is King. He's just. And He has salvation. He has salvation. He alone is
salvation. He alone dispenses salvation. Norm spoke about it here a little
while ago. Salvation is of the Lord, and
if you have to spend a few days in the ship's belly to find out. that that is who God is and that
is how God saves. Salvation is of the Lord in its
entirety, in its totality. Salvation is of the Lord in its
completeness. Salvation is of the Lord in the
declaration of all the character of God Almighty. He justifies us by His righteousness. He has a righteous salvation
for people who have absolutely no righteousness in themselves
whatsoever, and no ability to perform any, and no ability to
get rid of the unrighteous things that we've done. He's a righteous
God in His salvation. comes to us having salvation. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. He came into this world. He comes
as a king. He came into this world to save
his people from their sins. And isn't it lovely that Zechariah's
prophecy is fulfilled just the week of the crucifixion of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he saves. he saves
by union he saves by substitution and he saves by him stooping
down to where we are listen to what it goes on to say he's lowly
and riding upon an ass, upon a colt, the foal of an ass. This king comes to where you
are, brothers and sisters. He comes to where we are. I don't have time to look at
it in great detail, but if you go to books like Job 39 and Jeremiah
2.24, you'll see that the wild ass pictured in the scriptures
is a picture of man in his fallenness. Man in his wilderness. Man, a
wild ass, used to the wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at
her pleasure. The wild ass. The wild ass is only tamed and
made obedient by the coming of a king and him taking rulership
over you. Don't you love the fact that
when the Lord comes, he comes as a mighty conquering king?
He comes to where we are. It's one of the most glorious
pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. I keep taking you back to it
in Matthew chapter 11. It's just this glorious description.
It's hard to believe that someone who is as glorious and as majestic
and has the awesome sovereignty and holiness of the Lord Jesus
Christ would say, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me and learn
of me. Don't just learn about me, learn
of me. In my glorious holiness, in my
glorious sovereignty, but in this glorious lowliness, take
my yoke upon you. In India, we used to see oxen
yoked all the time. And the oxen, I thought these
were just like cows, these oxen. And I used to think that I could
go up to them in the villages and pat them like the dairy cows
that we fiddled with all the time. They didn't want you to
be anywhere near them at all if you weren't the one who ruled
over them. And they had huge horns on them,
and they were wild. But these men who had them and
had them tied up all the time and fed them and looked after
them, They could have them constrained, and the yoke went from one oxen
to the other oxen. And the two oxen were held together,
and between them was a stick that held a wooden plough, and
the ploughing of the oxen in the villages in India was the
same as the ploughing of the oxen and the asses in the days
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was like walking back in time
thousands of years to be in the villages of India. What a glorious
picture. He says, take my yoke. He bears
the yoke and he yokes his people to himself. In union and in communion. Take my yoke upon me and learn
of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest
for your souls. The greatest rest we can have
is being yoked to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is lowly. He is lowly. We're born as a
wild ass's cult, but in his lowliness, he comes to where we are, and
in his absolute sovereignty, he takes the wild ass's cult,
and he just rides it into Jerusalem, to the temple, to the cross,
to the rejoicing of the daughters of Zion. Our great king comes. Thankfully, he does come. Otherwise,
if left to ourselves, where would we be? Our great king comes and
yokes us to himself. And our great King comes as a
conqueror. In verse 10 of Zechariah 9 it
says, And I will cut off the chariot of Ephraim. People were
proud of the fact that they had their chariots. And the horse
of Jerusalem, they were proud that they rode on horses. And
the battle bows shall be cut off. He will subdue the enmity against
him. And listen to what he goes on
to say. When he has subdued by conquering, like he does the
Wild Asses cult, He shall speak peace unto the heathen. That's all those nations around.
You remember when the gospel went out, didn't it? It went
out from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.
And there was this great declaration, thy king is coming, thy king
has come. Thy king has ruled, thy king
has triumphed over all of your enemies, over all of your sin,
over all that makes you a heathen separated from God. He comes
as a ruling king and he yokes you to himself. He takes away
our weapons of war by disarming us with his love and his grace. And he puts it into the warfare
between us and God. We didn't realise we were at
warfare with God. We didn't realise that we hated
God in our hearts. We didn't ever hate the God that
we can create with our own imagination and a God that bows to our will.
People by nature hate the true and sovereign and living God. and having put an end to that
warfare, he speaks peace. He speaks peace to the heathen. He is our peace. He's made peace
for us by the blood of his cross. He's reconciled us together. When we were enemies, when we
were yet enemies in our minds by wicked deeds, he's reconciled
us to himself. And he speaks peace by the gospel. And his dominion. shall be from
sea, even to sea, and from the river, even to the ends of the
earth. I love reading that phrase, the
ends of the earth, because geographically, we're pretty close to the ends
of the earth. If you picture Jerusalem as being the center,
we're very close, us and New Zealand and South America. We're
the ends of the earth and the gospel is promised. 2,500 years
ago to come to the ends of the earth and it's the gospel that's
going to declare you rejoice greatly you rejoice greatly as
for thee also verse 11 daughters of zion children of god By the
blood of thy covenant have I sent forth thy prisoners out of the
pit wherein there was no water. The precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ sets us free, free from this wilderness, free from
us being heathens, sets us We have to be made free to rejoice.
We have to be made free to shout. We have to be made free to declare,
behold, thy King has come. Thy King has come. May the blessed
Holy Spirit take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. These
are glorious things of the Lord Jesus Christ, aren't they? Glorious
things for his people. and make them known to us. May
the spirit of truth come and take and reveal these things
to us. Let us rejoice. Let us rejoice
over God, our Saviour. Amen.