Mark chapter 11, and we're reading
from verse eight. This is telling us about the
Lord entering into Jerusalem. And many spread their garments
in the way, and others cut down branches off the trees and strawed
them in the way. And they that went before, and
they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our
father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem,
and into the temple. And when he had looked round
about, Upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went
out unto Bethany with the twelve. And on the morrow, when they
were come from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree
afar off, having leaves, he came. If happily, he might find anything
thereon. And when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus
answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter
for ever. And his disciples heard it. And
they come to Jerusalem. And Jesus went into the temple
and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple,
and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of
them that sold doves. and would not suffer that any
man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying
unto them, It is, is it not written, My house shall be called of all
nations the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of
thieves? And the scribes and chief priests
heard it, and sought how they might destroy him, for they feared
him. because all the people was astonished
at his doctrine. And when he even was come, he
went out of the city. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Jesus had been to the temple
in Jerusalem many times before. He was taken there as an infant. He attended when he was 12 years
old. In all likelihood, he was there
many, many times throughout his teens and twenties, and certainly
he was present there during his own ministry. So when we are
told by Mark that following his entry into the city that he looked
round about upon all things, we need not imagine that the
Lord was sightseeing, nor was he looking for information. Nor was he trying to get a feel
for the atmosphere in the city, or scoping out the lie of the
land to find out what was happening, or tracking down old friends
and acquaintances in some way. There may be a sense that the
Lord was making himself known in the city, moving around so
that no one was unaware of his presence there. And that, if
it were so, would contrast with an earlier visit that he made
to a feast there in Jerusalem, when John tells us that, then
went he up also unto the feast, not openly, but as it were, in
secret. But rather, I think the sense
of what Mark is saying to us here, is that Jesus looked round
about upon all things in the temple, thereby making known
to his disciples and by them to us his knowledge and awareness
of all that was happening there, and fixing in our minds his purposeful
actions with all that was about to happen next. Nothing in the
coming days, and remember there were only a few more days until
the Lord would be arrested and crucified, but nothing in the
coming days took the Lord by surprise. Everything was following
its course. Everything was running to plan. culminating in that great end
for which the Lord Jesus Christ had come into this world. His
death at Calvary, his atoning sacrifice and the redemption
of his people. So when we are told by Mark that
he looked round about on all things, We have then set forth
for us, both in Mark and in the other gospel writers, a number
of things that the Lord saw when he looked round about upon all
things. And what I'm going to do for
the rest of our time today is I am going to look at a few of
those things that the Lord saw. and hopefully draw some applications
from them that might be useful to us in our thinking, for our
comfort and encouragement, and in our understanding of what
it was that the Lord was doing here. And we might apply to our
own life and times also. So here are a few applications
regarding what the Lord saw when he looked round about upon all
things. Firstly, Luke tells us that the
Saviour surveyed the ancient city of Jerusalem that was soon
to be destroyed and he wept. We're told that in Luke chapter
19 and verse 41. So I'm going to draw upon some
of the other gospel writers as well on this occasion, not be
confined simply to Mark's comments at this stage. Let me tell you
something personal if I may. I used to be quite sensitive
to verses such as this because I felt that they may be interpreted,
they may be construed in such a way as to give too much wriggle
room to those who taught that God desires the salvation of
all men and women, a sort of fullerism of approach to the
doctrines of grace, that God desired all men to be saved even
although he did not decree for all to be saved. But I need not
have been overly sensitive really to a verse such as that, that
Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. That is really to take the meaning
of the Gospel writers too far and the meaning of the Lord too
far. The passage does not challenge
Christ's deity in any way, nor does it challenge the doctrines
of particular and distinguishing grace concerning the spiritual
and eternal salvation of God's elect. Jesus wept for the city
of Jerusalem because as a man, in his humanity, he saw the horror
that was coming against the city. The Lord here is showing us his
true humanity. The Lord was truly human, with
human feelings, and he felt the hurt and the sadness of the consequences
of sin in the human race. You and I today, and not just
today in this current time. But we see some of these terrible
events in this world unfolding. We might mention Ukraine. It's high in its profile at the
moment as far as news broadcasts are concerned. That will diminish
in coming days, especially if that particular war lasts for
a long time. The news broadcasters will slowly
come back and we won't hear as much about it. Perhaps, perhaps
it could obviously escalate much worse and much more broadly. But if it doesn't, it will just
be some other incident, some other issue where we see the
hurt and the sadness and the consequences of sin in the lives
of men and women in this world. wherever it is and whatever it
is. We should not simply shrug our
shoulders and think it to be of little matter what it is that's
happening in the lives of men and women, any more than the
Lord did, as he anticipated the suffering and the sadness inflicted
by one upon another because of sin. Nor are we unmoved when
we see our friends and our family suffering. So we learn here by
this that Jesus empathises with us in our feelings and he is
touched by the sadness and the loss as we are in our emotions. And this is no weakness on the
part of the Lord, but it is rather a great strength of the Lord's
relationship with us because we have an understanding Saviour
when we go with the feelings that we have in our own hearts
and in our own experiences. And we do encounter loss and
a feeling of inability and a feeling of emptiness. And when we do,
we know that when we go to the Lord, the Lord himself has wept
tears. The Lord himself has known loss. just as he wept at the graveside
of his friend Lazarus. It is another evidence of Christ's
union and closeness to us in our weaknesses. And isn't not sad when we see
the gospel despised and rejected Do we not long to see sinners
saved and embracing the grace of God? Are we numb to the eternal
state of our own families? I don't think so. Christ wasn't. There is a day of judgment coming
and we do well to urge all who will listen to seek Christ and
the forgiveness and mercy that is found alone in him. So the Lord wept over Jerusalem
at this time when he entered into the city. And also when
the Lord Jesus looked round about upon all things, we're told that
he saw the common people joyfully worshipping, and he commended
them. He commended their worship. It's
interesting that the Lord commends these worshippers against some
Pharisees who sought to have the disciples of Jesus rebuked. And Jesus replies to them, I
tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out. So these praises and these chants
of the common people and the little children, they were messianic. They were drawn from the Old
Testament scriptures and they reflected the fact that there
was this surge of messianic excitement on the part of these Jerusalem
worshippers at the present time drawn from Old Testament prophecy. Luke in chapter 19 verse 38 quotes
these worshippers as saying, Blessed be the king that cometh
in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in
the highest. Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. Mark tells us in chapter 11 verse
10, we read it a few minutes ago, blessed be the kingdom of
our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna
in the highest. And Matthew picks up the same
theme in chapter 21 verse 15 when he tells us the children
crying in the temple and saying Hosanna to the son of David. I wonder if this was true spiritual
worship. Were these folk all believers? Or were some of them worshipping
that day when the Lord entered Jerusalem, crying out for Christ's
blood a few days later? Away with this man, away with
this man. We will not have this man to
reign over us. Perhaps, perhaps. But what Christ
receives as worship is Christ's business. Asaph, the psalmist,
tells us in Psalm 76 verse 10, Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee. And the psalmist there seems
to suggest that ultimately all things in this world will honour
Christ's glory and bend to his kingship by one means or another. Here the king was coming to his
kingdom and he shall be praised even if it takes the very stones
of the ground to rise up in worship of him. This is the God-man who
has entered into Jerusalem upon the greatest work, the greatest
activity that this world has ever known and he will be praised. And here's something else that
the Lord saw. Here's the third thing that the
Lord saw. He saw the hypocrisy of the religious
Jews and he silenced them. I think that there is a greater
culpability and responsibility falls upon blind leaders of blind
people than upon the blind themselves. There are many today in churches
who are ignorant and untaught in the gospel of God's grace. And yet those same people are
taught that it is well with their souls because they have been
told that since they were children. They believe honestly that they
are going to heaven, that their sins are all forgiven, and yet
they may never have heard the true gospel in the whole of their
lives. Woe betides those preachers who
hide Christ from dying sinners by whispering, peace, peace,
when there is no peace. We've made a point of this in
our Tuesday Zoom meetings recently, and I'm going to mention it again
here today. Be careful who you listen to. Not all gospels are the same. This world is full of religion,
but a man's religion will take him to hell, and a woman's faith
will take her to hell, unless it is true religion and true
faith in the blood of Jesus Christ alone, for that righteousness
and that peace with God that only he can bring. Better the
simplicity of a little child chanting a verse of prophetic
worship with faith the size of a mustard seed than a self-righteous
priest bedecked in free-will works religion that must and
will lead to hell. It matters not what men and women
say about you. What matters is what God says
about you. And if the Lord Jesus Christ
is pleased to call us his little ones, then that will suffice. The parable of the fig tree that
we read here in Mark chapter 11 points to this. The Lord saw
a fig tree full of leaves, full of leaves, with the appearance
of life. And being hungry, he went to
it, happily that he might find something to eat upon its branches. But it bore no fruit. What's
the significance of that? It looks as if it's living. It's
got all the trappings of life. The branches and the leaves and
the greenness, but there was nothing on it that would satisfy. There was a show of life, as
there is often a show of religion, but nothing in the branches of
that fig tree would satisfy a hungry man. And churches can dazzle
with their size or they can entice with their entertainment. They
can soothe people's consciences with programs that are designed
to suit the energy and the skill and the resources of every last
member. But unless they preach a gospel
to feed the Lord's sheep with wholesome food, It is a waste
of time. It's a smoothing of the road
to hell. It's a broad way with wide gates. And so I repeat, be careful who
you listen to and be careful what you hear because not all
Gospels are the same. What else did Jesus see as he
had looked round about on all things? He saw the temple with its merchants
and its money changers, and he swept all before him. Interesting, this is not the
first time that the Lord had rid the temple of these businesses. And depending on how we read
these parallel passages in the gospel, it may well not be the
last time either. It seems as if, if we compare
Matthew and Mark, that the Lord actually rid the temple of these
money changers twice on two consecutive days. One on the day that he
entered into Jerusalem, and the following morning, because they
were back at their tables and back at their booths, as if nothing
had happened, after he came back from Bethany. If you're intrigued
by that possibility, read the parallel passages in each of
the Gospels. But these priests were using
the temple as a cover. They were using the worship of
God as a cover for profiteering and fraud. They hid themselves
under the appearance of religion and devotion while they were
extorting the worshippers. They made the house of God built
and designed for the worship of God into a money-making business,
and they made merchandise thereby of the souls of men and women. And observing this, the Lord
would have none of it. And once again, just as he had
done at the beginning of his ministry, he chased them out
of the temple, at least the commercial face of that religious trade
that was going on there in the temple precincts. And he overthrew
the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold
doves. And I'm sure that there's a lesson
for us here too in reflecting upon this. At the very least,
it tells us that we should never make or be complicit in making
the church a business where the measure of success or failure
is a profit and loss account rather than the comfort and nourishment
of the Lord's sheep. In Zechariah 11, verse 5, the
prophet quotes the ministers of his day as saying, Blessed
be the Lord, for I am rich. What a shame if there are preachers
today who bless the Lord for making them financially rich. But then Zechariah goes on and
tells us concerning the Lord's people, the people that heard
those ministers. And here's what he says of them.
And their own shepherds pity them not. Blessed be the Lord
for I am rich, but their own shepherds pity them not. But I think there's more to this
than simply seeing church as a business or rather not being
a business. And that is that the gospel itself
and Christ's doctrine itself is ultimately at stake in a situation
like this. Because sovereign grace is not
what natural men and women wish to hear. So for the sake of numbers,
and oh, how much numbers are a curse. But for the sake of
numbers, preachers tailor their message, dilute the gospel to
the point where it becomes no gospel at all, and they build
their systems of free will and of works religion, and they teach
doctrines to satisfy itching ears. and such a gospel neither
saves nor satisfies hungry sheep. When churches forego being houses
of prayer and houses of worship, when churches forego feeding
the Lord's people with spiritual food and feeding the bread of
life, Christ himself, in their preaching and in their message,
they have missed their calling and they are rightly called synagogues
of Satan. Mark says that the people of
the city were astonished at Christ's doctrine. Well might they be. It was the antithesis of the
Pharisees doctrine. Christ's doctrine taught justification
as a free gift. It taught holiness satisfied,
justice honoured, God reconciled and sins forgiven by the atoning
work of a substitute. It spoke of faith and love and
grace and mercy and eternal peace with God. This is the true gospel
and this alone will heal and bless a weary soul. And lastly, and fifthly, as the
Lord looked round about on all the things, he saw something
else too. He saw the lame and he saw the
blind and he healed them all. What a wonderful saviour we have. What a wonderful saviour this
is who receives sinners and heals their sickness of soul and their
spiritual blindness. Who gives enabling grace and
faith to needy sinners. There in the temple in Jerusalem,
our Lord Jesus Christ took time to receive those who sought him
for help. And he brought them all the relief
they desired. Brothers and sisters, it is the
same Jesus that we worship today. Here in the temple of his church,
here in the temple of his body, the body of his people, there
is mercy and grace for all who come to Christ with a need of
help. And this is yours today. If you
feel a need of Christ in your soul, it is because he has seen
you. It is because he has come to
help you. that you feel your need, that
you feel your sin is evidence sufficient of his willingness
to forgive and heal and help you. Matthew 21 verse 14 says, and
the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed
them. The blind and the lame. There
were blind people and there were lame people and maybe there were
lame blind people. It's a very fitting picture of
inability. The lame cannot walk. The blind
cannot see. So the Lord Jesus Christ in love
and pity comes to where we are. He sees our need and he heals
us. He comes to poor dead sinners
in the gospel as it is preached and he gives us eyes to see our
need of him and he gives enabling grace that we might rise and
come to him. Sweetly and softly the God-man
whispers to the souls of his people, to the souls of those
whose sins he has borne, whose sorrows he has carried, Come unto me and I will give
you rest. May the Lord Jesus Christ whisper
those words to our hearts, to our souls, in our ears, through
his gospel this day. And may we be blessed in coming
to him. For Jesus' sake, amen.