You have on your sheets before
you there a passage of scripture that we're looking at this morning. And it's remarkable in the Gospel
accounts, this is now just six days or less, maybe five, before
the Lord Jesus is crucified and it takes up this Last few days
takes up the last 6 chapters of Mark's Gospel, takes up the
last 10 chapters of John's Gospel. It's just... So clearly evident
that all of what's gone beforehand culminates, all of what's gone
beforehand in all of history, and all of what culminates in
a sense from all of what's gone on since this time, is this is
the centre, isn't it? We are now approaching this remarkable
time when the Lord Jesus comes as a King, to the place of His
exaltation. He comes as a King, sovereignly
ruling. He comes as a King on behalf
of all of His people. And He just reigns so wonderfully
and supremely. And I just pray the Lord God
the Holy Spirit would just open our eyes to see something of
His beauty and something of His power in these words before us. Prior to this the Lord Jesus
has lived so often a retiring life. In fact in Mark chapter
1 when there are crowds seeking Him because there are people
needing healing He leaves that needful crowd behind and goes
to other villages because that's why he's come. He's come to preach
the Gospel. But here in this last week, everything
is as public as possible. He's come up from Jericho and
he's now approaching Jerusalem. And the geography is quite simple,
isn't it? Jerusalem is on a mountain, Mount
Zion, Mount Moriah, where Abraham took his son Isaac to be sacrificed. The city that David captured
and founded and called his own city. But between it and the
Mount of Olives on the eastern side, was the Brook Kidron, and
then over the other side of the Mount of Olives, just a few kilometres
from Jerusalem, you have these two villages of Bethphage and
Bethany. One means place of dates, and
one is a place of figs, and so it's a fertile place. But here
we have before us the Lord Jesus portrayed again as God, absolutely
sovereignly reigning over all of these events. We must never
forget the wonder of divine sovereignty, the comfort of divine sovereignty,
the hope that we have because God, our Saviour, sits on the
throne of this universe and rules absolutely everything. And so
we look to Him for things that we would love to see happen.
We don't look to men. We look to our Saviour. So much
that goes on in religion is pleading with men to do something. And
we do exhort and plead with men, but we spend much more time,
I trust, pleading with God to do, because with man it is impossible,
but with God all things are possible. And so here we have the Lord
Jesus exercising the most remarkable sovereignty. He sends two of
his disciples and in verse 2 he said to them, go into the village
opposite you and immediately as you enter it you will find
a cult tied there on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and
bring it here. If anyone says to you, why are
you doing this? You say, the Lord has need of
it, and immediately He will send it back here. And so here we
have the Lord Jesus exercising his sovereignty again. Why was
the cult there? Why was the cult born of that
donkey? And the donkeys in those parts
can be quite large animals. The donkey was there because
Zechariah, over 400 years prior to that, had prophesied, as we
read earlier, that behold, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, your King is coming to
you. He is just and having salvation,
lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey."
And just to emphasize the fulfillment of that in Matthew's Gospel,
it talks about the mother of this donkey being there. And
these Jews had lived with the last words they had from God
400 years beforehand. The last word they had from God
was, the Lord, in Malachi 3, the Lord whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple,
even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold,
He is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. Who can endure the day of His
coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's thyre
and like a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and
a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi
and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord
an offering in righteousness. And so Solomon, when he dedicated
this temple in Jerusalem, prayed that marvellous prayer in 2 Chronicles. And one of the parts of that
prayer was, will God really come and dwell on this earth? The
Lord Jesus didn't ever shy from proclaiming His deity. He's done so in so many of His
miracles. But here is this God coming to
Jerusalem, the place that's chosen, the chosen city that my name
might be there. Will God really dwell with man
on the earth? And here we have God coming and
ruling sovereignly. He rules sovereignly over the
actions of man. He not only rules sovereignly
over the actions of men, He rules sovereignly over the thoughts
of men. In verse 3, if anyone says to
you, why are you doing it? The Lord has need of it and immediately
He will send it back to you. And what did the bystanders say
in verse 5? What are you doing? Untying the
cult. The Lord knew the thoughts of
men. He controls the thoughts of men. And as a sovereign God, he exercises
faith in his people, because even though this seemed like
an odd errand to send the disciples on, in verse 4, they went away
and they found things exactly as the Lord had described them.
They found a cult tied at the door, outside in the street,
and they untied it. God is absolutely sovereign. And in Mark's Gospel we have
seen again and again that he exercises absolute sovereignty
over everything, everything. Nothing in this universe happens
outside of his perfect sovereign decree. And as the second Adam,
he shows us something of what happened when we fell, when we
sinned against God and fell in our father Adam, this creation
which was created to be a delight, this creation which was created
to be a comfort for us, to nurture us, to feed us, to cause us to
look in wonder at the beauty of creation, to look in wonder
at the magnificence of the things that God has made, and for us
to rule it, for us to have rulership over it. And this creation became Instead of a place of
peace, and a place of joy, and a place of comfort, has become,
because of our sin, a place where by the sweat of our brow, we
struggle to find our food. We struggle against the futility
of it. We gather and gather and gather,
and it's all taken away by moths and rusts and thieves and all
sorts of things. It's a frustrating place. This
world that Satan now rules is a frustrating place for the children
of Adam. It provides No secure home for
anyone. As soon as we think we've gathered
enough, we're concerned about someone taking it away from us.
We never have peace. We never have security. And the
creation which was made by God to serve us, now has become a place that frustrates
us. It's either too hot, or too cold,
or too windy, or too miserable. And the animals, the animals
which were our friends in the garden, the animals which were
there for us to rule over, now require incredible effort. to get us to rule them in any
way at all. But the Lord Jesus shows how
wonderfully He is the second Adam, and how wonderfully He
came to undo and overturn that curse. They brought the cult,
they brought this young donkey, this young ass, to the Lord Jesus,
just as He had promised. It was where he promised it to
be, it was brought to them as he promised it was, and they
put their coats on it, and he sat on it. For those of you who
have had anything to do with horses, anything like horses,
You just think about what's involved in putting some cloaks, some
clothes on an unridden horse. Here we have John Newell who's
a farrier. What does that horse do when the first person sits
on it, John? We do know, don't we? Go to a
rodeo and you find out what happens. What happened when the Lord Jesus
sat on this colt? This cult was perfectly obedient
to him. He is sovereign. He does rule all things. He rules animals as well. Their lives as ours are in his
hands. And so this cult was there because
of a promise from God. It was there because of God's
sovereign hand in it. And this was all acting out those
words we have read from Zechariah. Behold your King. Rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion. Rejoice People of Israel, rejoice,
children of God! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to
you. He is just, and He is having
salvation. God will not save anyone without
absolute justice being done. He cannot save you. He cannot
take away your sins unless perfect justice is performed. God must
be seen in the salvation of people to be holy and to be just. And he's lowly, he comes as one
who is humble. He has shown himself again and
again to be a man of extraordinary humility. And he rides on a donkey, a colt,
the foal of a donkey. And so these people gathered
before him, this crowd now, They're on their way to Jerusalem for
Passover, the great feast, the great feast of the Jews, one
of the three feasts in which the Jewish men had to go to Jerusalem. And so we have a crowd going
to Jerusalem which ultimately numbered in hundreds of thousands. This is big and this is public. But we have a wonderful picture
here of the Lord Jesus, riding into Jerusalem as their King,
riding in there publicly. History for Christians doesn't
prove anything, but for Christians, history does establish for us
again and again the fact that all of what happened to the Lord
Jesus was public. It was public history. It was
common, commonly known. But also, as we have seen earlier,
when the Lord rules over the hearts of people, the hearts
of His disciples, the hearts of the men who own the donkey,
and cause them to let this donkey go in the hands of strangers,
He rules over the hearts of people who will praise Him. Where does
God get praise from men? He gets praise from men because
of what He creates in them. He gets praise from people who
cry out these words, Hosanna. They cry out, God's children
cry out, save me, I pray, is what they were saying. Save me,
I pray. Save now. And so just picture
the crowd that we have before us in verse 9. Before the Lord
comes you have some of the crowd. They went before him and they
cry out, save us now. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. Save us now. And then the Lord,
who is salvation itself, comes, and then those who follow cry
out, Save us now. Save, I pray. God's children who will inherit
eternity. God's children who will have
their sins forgiven. God's children, who will be represented
by the Lord Jesus in a few days time as He dies on that cross,
are people who are made by God to cry out, save me. They are aware, as these verses
show us, they are aware of two fundamental things. that come
with salvation. One is that Jesus is King. They will see the Lord high and
lifted up sitting on a throne. The other thing they will see
is that they are sinners. They really are sinners. There are so few people in this
world who really see themselves as sinners. In fact, when you
talk about sin to people, the automatic reaction is, well,
I'm not as bad as so-and-so. Or they use the Hitler defense,
I'm not as bad as Hitler. So therefore, on some sort of
a scale, you have the really bad people here, and it's not
me, I've made a few mistakes, I've messed up a few things,
I've hurt a few people, but basically I am really good, and God has
to look at me on the basis of my goodness, and he must let
me into heaven because I'm good. People who have met God, People
who the Holy Spirit is working in don't say those things. They like the tax collector,
the hated Jew who went up to the temple and he said, Lord
have mercy on me, the sinner. They see what the Lord Jesus
said to the people in Mark chapter 7, that sin is not things that
they do. The things that they do come
out of a corrupt heart. A corrupt heart that cannot be
cleansed by human activity. Sin is huge because God is big. Sin is gruesome because God is
holy. Sin must be punished because
God is just. And so the children cry out,
save us. Hosanna. Save us now. Save us, I pray. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord. What a blessing it is. for people to meet the one who
comes in the name of the Lord. To come in the name of the Lord
is to come with all of the character of God. A name is just not a
few words like Jesus. A name is all of the character
of God. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord is a declaration that this one who is riding on
this colt, this foal of a donkey, this one for whom people are
spreading palm branches out on the road to welcome this king,
this one is God. This one is Israel's Messiah. To be Israel's Messiah is to
be God. Blessed is He. Blessed is He. Salvation belongs to our God
who sits on the throne. Salvation belongs to the Lord
Jesus. It is His It is in His hands. It is for Him to distribute.
It is for Him to do the gathering. Just as He ruled over the thoughts
of the men who owned the donkey, He ruled over the praises of
these people who sang out. And the Pharisees heard people
singing out. Even children joined in and the
Lord Jesus quoted scripture to them. He said, out of the mouths
of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise. The Pharisees who were there
always to whinge and to complain and to parade the fact that they
are good and they are righteous were there yet again in Luke's
Gospel The Pharisees plead with Jesus, rebuke your disciples,
stop this noise. The Lord has a remarkable response
to them. He says, even if the disciples
and even if these children keep silent, the very stones will
immediately cry out, God will get praise. He will get the praise
that he deserves. He will get the praise as being
the one who causes his people to cry out, save now. He will get the praise of people
who will acknowledge him as God. Blessed is the coming kingdom
of our Father David. Now the real David. The one who David typified, the
one who established Jerusalem, the one who defeated all the
enemies of God's people, the one who brought peace. All of
what David did physically to create that great nation and
that great city and gather everything for the temple. All of that the
Lord Jesus has done amazingly spiritually for all of his people. He's the one who defeats all
of our enemies. He's the one that establishes
his city. He's the one that gathers his
people to his city. Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest. The heavens praise God. And the praises of heaven become
the praises of earth when people call out to God. And then earth's
praises become heaven's praises. The Lord Jesus showed His boldness. There in Jerusalem was the nest
of all the people who were plotting and had been plotting for three
years in every sly way they possibly could to defame Him, to speak
ill of Him, to question His illegitimate birth, as they thought, to make
a mockery of His miracles, saying that they were done in the name
of Satan. He's a remarkably courageous
man, our Saviour. He marches up to Jerusalem with
a crowd of people. He marches straight into Jerusalem. He's really saying, this is my
city. I am the King of Jerusalem and
I am going to the temple. And he went straight to the temple,
the place where God had promised to have his name, the place that
had been polluted by zealous religious people who turned the
worship of God into self-righteous religion. People who no longer
cried out, Hosanna, save us. people who on the basis of their
works have saved themselves. Just like most people around
us, they really believe that they will be saved when they
meet God because of the things they have done. Jesus marches
straight into Jerusalem. He marches straight up to the
temple. He's saying, this is my city. This temple is my temple. And remarkably, even though the
temple was desecrated, and we'll see, Lord willing, next week,
that the Lord Jesus takes authority over that temple and cleanses
it, ready for His sacrifice. He looked around at everything
and left for Bethany with the Twelve, since it was already
late. The Lord exercises His sovereignty
also by allowing wickedness to have its way for a season. There is a time, there is a time
coming when justice will perfectly be done. There is a time coming
when every human knee will bow before this King and they will
acknowledge that He is King. They will either do it here because
of His work of grace in their lives, they will cry out here,
save me, Hosanna, save me I pray. They will be humbled here, or
come that day when they meet Him in judgment, they will be
humbled in such a way that Hosanna's will no longer be effective. They will spend eternity never praising
God. They will spend eternity shut
out from God. They will spend eternity suffering
the wrath of God for their sins in darkness and never repenting. So the only way God can be the
saviour that these people cry out for, is that in a few days
time the Lord Jesus has to be taken to that place where they
nail him to a cross. And as Simon read out from Psalm
22 a little earlier, that place where he will cry out, my God,
my God, why have you forsaken me? He'll be nailed to that cross,
and on that cross He will suffer eternity's punishment for the
sins of His people. That's the only way He can be
just. He is just and having salvation. In a few days' time from this
story, the Lord Jesus will be made the thing that most horrifies
Him. He will be made the sin of all
of His people. And God will pour out on Him,
and did pour out on Him, infinite wrath, until the justice of God
said, it is finished. Until the holiness of God said,
enough, it is finished. until God can say to all of his
people what David prayed in anticipation and in faith. Blessed are those whose sins
are forgiven. whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord shall not impute sin." That's our Gospel. Jesus has done it. There are a blessed people in
this world. They'll cry out, saying, I pray,
And they will know that salvation has come in the Lord Jesus. And perfectly finished is that
salvation for all of His people. They are the blessed ones. They cry out because they have
seen Him on a throne. They cry out because they have
seen themselves as they are. And God works faith and repentance
and comfort and joy. And those people will respond,
as we read earlier in Zechariah, those people will rejoice. Those people shout out about
their Saviour. Those people behold your King. They look to the Lord Jesus in
a look There is salvation. They keep looking to the Lord
Jesus, and one day in heaven they will gaze upon Him and rejoice
inexpressibly. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you that there is Such a God as our Saviour, the Lord
Jesus. We thank you that as a man, He
knows what it is to live in this world and to be tempted as we
are. He knows what it is to be poor,
to need a borrowed cot, to need to have borrowed clothes for
a saddle. Heavenly Father, we thank You
that He was touched with all of what hurts us, and He can
sympathize with the pain and the hurts that we have in our
lives. And we praise You that He took
our sins, He took all of the sins of all of God's people upon
Himself, and called them His own, and suffered infinitely
for them. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you cause your people to cry out, save us, I pray. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
for salvation finished and completed in our Lord Jesus. Please cause
us, Heavenly Father, to behold Him, to look to Him, to cry out
to Him, and to wait for Him to come. and rescue us. We thank you for your son, our
dear Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.