This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. I want to encourage you also,
those of you who are not able to be here midweek, if you're
able to be here midweek, please come. If you're not able to be
here midweek, please listen to the midweek sermons and teachings
on Romans. They really coordinate well with
what we've been learning in John. In John chapter 12, it's been,
I guess, a month now since we've been in John. Three Sundays out
of John and now back. This is sermon number 100. So
for those of you who are keeping track, that's how I keep up with
them. We know that John 11 and 12 centers
on and around the resurrection of Lazarus. And this resurrection
of Lazarus, of course, is ordained and established by God's decree
in order to prove and glorify Jesus Christ as God. Just as
Lazarus was raised from the dead, we shall see in some short years
Jesus, too, will be raised from the dead. And he is raised from
the dead because he is innocent of sin. Death could not hold
him. He is vindicated in his righteousness. And all of the
things that we will learn pertaining to the righteousness of God in
Jesus Christ, which is also his justice. People saw and heard in the three
and a half year ministry of Jesus, all the things that he taught.
Just as word travels very quickly in our day, whether it be through
social media, through gossip, I mean, there was not an internet
when I was a child and teenager that didn't exist. There were
no computers except for that which you typed and printed upon.
There wasn't any real network digitally outside of Ma Bell. And even Ma Bell, I remember
as a kid, we had a party line at my father's house, and there
were 10 or 12 people that were on, and there were many times
I'd find myself listening to other people's conversations,
only to have my grandmother say, get off the phone. I'm like,
well, why are you on it? Anyway, looking back, I didn't realize
it then. So gossip could take place there. Information could flow that way.
And no matter what point in history, information has always flowed.
There's never been a secret so secretive that it didn't get
out. And in today's time, What I'm saying right now could already
be in 100 countries. 50 million people, at the blink
of an eye, could be talking about what you wore yesterday if you
posted it on social media. If you accidentally post something
and it's on the internet for less than two seconds, someone
could have already shared it, and billions of people could
have already seen it. And there's no escaping it. So
that's not that real, to have something disseminated as far
as information to us and our culture doesn't really impress
us. But think of the first century. Think of Jesus standing in a
circle of 300 people, and before he could leave that area and
get to the next town, the information that he said and what was being
said about him beat him there. Years ago, I was being really
intelligent, and I thought I had come up with this incredible,
a lot of, I used to write, I still do, I used to write little phrases
down and sayings and things, and one thing would lead to another,
and I thought I coined a lot of phrases that I did not coin.
You know, I didn't say that, I made this phrase, who cares? I just remember saying things
that sort of came to my mind and then later someone said,
oh, you must have been reading so and so, or you must have been
doing this. No, but when you read the same
material and you have the same mind, you have the same spirit,
you're gonna come to the same types of conclusions. Well, I
remember one time thinking as I was preparing to teach one
week, you know, everybody in the world is an evangelist. Everybody's
an evangelist. In Silicon Valley, that's actually
a job you can apply for. Intel has evangelists. Yahoo
did have evangelists. And those are the people that
go around and just talk about the good things that the company's
doing. They go around and they share stuff. They get on social
media. They do whatever they can do to proclaim the good message
of the company. But we know the very name of
evangelist, the very title, the very role has everything and
only anything to do with the gospel of free and sovereign
grace. It is about the good news of Jesus Christ. That is why
it became known as the good news. Not just some good news, not
just one of the good news, not just a good news, but the good
news. The gospel, which is what that transliteration of evangel
God speak, gospel, that's where the word comes from. It's God
speaking, God proclaiming. Proclamation is indeed evangelism
and proclamation is also coupled in the scripture with a specific
word and it is witness. Someone that witnesses something
in our day is just somebody saw it. They witnessed it. But when we see witness in the
New Testament, we see witness in the scripture. It is about
someone not only have seen and heard something, but saying what
they heard and saw. So when it says that God is a
witness to Christ, God proclaimed Christ, this is my beloved son
with whom I am well pleased. The Spirit witnessed Christ,
not just in what we could observe, but the Spirit ascended on Christ,
rested there. The Spirit is the wind of power
behind the proclamation of the gospel of free and sovereign
grace, so that as we who have witnessed God the Spirit now
have witnessed Christ the Son. And then we give glory to God
the Father through proclamation of this truth. As we study, as
we share, as we study, as we teach, as we worship, as we proclaim
in glory, as we proclaim in praise, we forget that the whole essence
of the gospel's purpose is for the glory of God to the praise
of His glorious, adjective, grace. God's desire in redemption is
that He is glorified and worshiped and praised for it. That is, on a side note, why
a humanistic gospel is so condemning. Because it robs God of that which
belongs to Him, which is glory. Self-glory has come to a head
in John 12 as it is accosted, attacked head on, confronted
by the glory of God that belongs to Him. So people told the story of Christ. Look at John chapter 12. Let's
just start in verse 1 and I'll read down through. We're not
going to finish it all. I was being optimistic. Verse
19. Six days before the Passover,
Jesus, therefore, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus
had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him
there. Martha served, and Lazarus was
one of those reclining with him at the table. The pronouns there
are all Jesus him. Mary, therefore, took a pound
of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet
of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled
with the fragrance of his perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of the
disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, why was this
ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? He said
this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was
a thief. And having charge of the money bag, he used to help
himself to what was in it. Jesus said, leave her alone so
that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor
you will always have with you, but you do not always have me.
When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there,
they came not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus,
whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans
to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him, many
of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. The next
day, the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that
Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm
trees and they went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna. Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. And Jesus found a young donkey
and sat on it just as it was written. Fear not daughter of
Zion. Behold, your king is coming sitting
on a donkey's colt. His disciples did not understand
these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, they remembered
that these things had been written about him and had done and what
had been done to him. The crowd that had been with
him, let's just keep going there. When he called Lazarus out of
the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to bear witness.
The reason that why the crowd went to meet him was that they
heard he had done the sign. So the Pharisees said to one
another, you see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world
has gone after him. There are so many applications
in this text. It's going to be it's going to
be hard to stay on task. Let's get started. First thing
we need to recognize is that Jesus, some six months prior,
is when he raised Lazarus from the dead. Then, when he was going
back into Jerusalem for the Passover, in his honor, Lazarus' family
threw a dinner on his behalf. And many people were there. We
don't know how many people, but many people were there. Many
people were there. They witnessed what Mary did. They were thinking of Lazarus,
talking about Lazarus. Lazarus was a very famous man.
He was known throughout the area because he had been raised from
the dead and then Jesus gave instruction to let him free and
get him out of here so that he wouldn't become a celebrity.
So he's not a celebrity because he was so actively involved in
witnessing death and resurrection, but he was a celebrity because
so many people continued to talk about what had happened to Lazarus.
And I can imagine based on what we see here in the text, as I'll
show you in a minute, that those people who did get a chance to
talk to Lazarus, all they heard was the glory of Christ. Evidenced by the fact that it
says many because of Lazarus had began to believe in Christ.
They didn't believe in Christ because Lazarus had been raised
from the dead. They believed in Christ because of the witness
of Lazarus to the person of Christ, who he was and what he was to
accomplish. Friends, let me tell you something.
There is a large epidemic in our culture to be inclusive in
the context of Christian brotherhood by anybody who says, oh, but
it's all about Jesus. It's just Jesus. It's the Bible. Name a Christendom cult that
doesn't say the same. People like to say, well, I'm
doing the work of Jesus. They're not doing the work of Jesus.
Had this conversation with some brothers in North Georgia this
week. When did all the missionaries lose sight of the gospel? When
did all these missions, things, and places, and parachurch ministries,
when did they start going down? I said, from the second they
began. Because the witness of Christ
has been usurped by the reality of what man can provide, offer,
or suggest. Suggestion and philosophy, neuro-linguistic
programming, if you don't know what that is, good. And everything
in between, it's all it's all taking precedence over the completely
simple witness of Jesus. People want to experience God,
but they don't want to know anything about him. People want a feeling,
but yet they don't want to experience the reality of his redemption.
Through the truth of the word. Everybody wants children to know
what the Bible says, but they want them to know what the Bible
says that they can manipulate their behavior rather than actually
teaching them the gospel through which God could save them if
they belong to him. And the list goes on and on.
After two decades of ministry, quote, professionally, I could
sit here and gripe and complain, but the Bible commands me not
to complain. So I won't complain, but I want
you to see just how far we've come. And when I say we, I mean
a culture who in the 1950s inscribed on our money in God we trust. It is not the God of the Bible
in which we trust. It never was. Deism is not Christ. And the very last place we should
ever ascribe that title or that lie is on our money. It's a contradiction. The God of America is not the
God of the Bible. But many Americans know and worship
the true God of the Bible. Just like many Israelites, just
like many Egyptians, just like many from all the countries of
Africa and every continent in the world of every tongue and
tribe and nation. And we alone are the elect. We
alone are the church. We alone are the Christians.
We are alone the children of God. And everywhere you go in
the name of Christ, you'll see large crowds. what history would call, and
you know, history is all, it's very subjective, depending on
who's talking and who's listening. But what historians write about
what they call the second great awakening, and for those of you
who know anything about church history, I don't consider it
church history. Just to tell you how little emphasis
I think it should be, should have in the historical record
of God's work, because it wasn't God's work. The second great
awakening is a term applied to this opportunity in America where
men decided they wanted to replicate true, powerful salvation experiences. And as a mentor told me years
ago that American Christianity and everyone who is in it loves
their salvation experience more than they do their savior. And
it's because that's what they've been given. The experience of
salvation is what they've been offered and they took it. Salvation
is not an offer. Like Christ did not say, I'm
going to give myself to whoever wants it. Who wants it? Do y'all want it? Okay. You want?
All right. All right. Cool. The only way
that works is if God asked every person that ever would ever live
and they voted and the ones that said, yes, I'll accept it. Then
Jesus got on the cross and died. Hmm. Outside of that, it doesn't work
at all. It doesn't work. Christ died
for his sheep. As we've already seen, Christ's
atoning work is sufficient and finished only for the elect of
God. Preach that gospel, beloved. And those who are overcome by
the frustration of, well, how is somebody going to choose Christ?
Exactly. Praise be to the sovereign God
of grace. We don't come to offer people
a chance. We come to proclaim the finished
gospel of hope that is theirs if they are His. And when people
see that and glory in it and embrace it and believe and long
for more and want to study and all the things that sort of happen
there, we say, praise be to God. And those who go, I just don't
get it. Help me understand. I just can't believe it. That's
not the God I serve. I don't really want to hear this.
I know better than you. I've read the Bible a thousand
times. I've been a Christian for 50 years. I'm a deacon. I'm
a pastor. I'm a missionary. Whoop-de-doo. Whoop-de-doo. Doesn't matter
if we're not born of God because we belong to Him and Christ died
for us. The Spirit has set us apart in
Christ. The Spirit has sanctified us fully. There is no more work
for man to do, whereby he would become more righteous, more set
apart, more holy, more saved, more redeemed. God has finished
all the work. And whether I am doing better
today or whether I fall off the wagon tomorrow in my sin, nothing
can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
And in His mercy, through the assembly of my brothers and sisters,
God will be gracious to correct me when I misstep and when I
sin. But as we've said for months,
in our midweek, as we finished up Romans 8 a couple of months
ago, only God can separate you from His love. Nothing else. So these crowds,
verse 9, There are two crowds that we're going to talk about,
but first let's look at this large crowd. When the large crowd,
and so this is referring back to some other things. We don't
really see it, but we can look at some of the synoptics and
we can see that there are many people who were around during that dinner,
many people who began to follow Him, and everywhere Jesus went
there was what? A large crowd. So when the large
crowd of the Jews, why was there a crowd in Jerusalem? Because
the Passover was at hand. They were gathering in Jerusalem
to observe the obligatory festival of Passover. They learned that
Jesus was there, they came. They came to where He was. They
began to hear. Some of them, I think, probably
came a little early. Jesus is in Jerusalem, let's
go ahead on it. Like some of us would do. In our culture,
if we knew a movie star or a famous person was around, we'd just
say, let's just go there real quick. It's only 600 miles out
of the way. Let's just take a left. But these
Jews went not only on account of Jesus, but also to see, they
wanted to marvel at this man who had died and began to rot
in the grave and then was raised to life. So because of this,
the chief priest made plans to kill Lazarus also. Because on the account of Lazarus,
many of the Jews were going away from them and believing in Jesus. Now I want you to, and this isn't
an epiphany here, it's already been taught. The Jews and all
they believed, let me put that into perspective. All, all that
they believed was directly opposite of everything Jesus taught. Everything, 100% of everything
that the Jews believed was against 100% of everything that Jesus
taught. They were completely antithetical.
They did not. What? They did not match. Now, why would I emphasize that
so loudly? Because. We have this problem
in our culture to think, well, somebody's using the Bible, you
know, these people believed, but they just left out a piece.
Well, guess what? Leaving out a piece, which is
not true of the Jews at all, they refused the whole of it.
If you don't remember, go back and listen to week 70 through
100, and you'll see that Jesus very much says, you're liars,
your father's Satan, all you are is darkness, you are dead,
you will die on your sins, you cannot see the kingdom, you do
not know God, you cannot hear God, you've never listened to
God, you've never had the word of God. I mean, these are just
quotes from Christ. People who have the almost truth
are not our almost brothers and sisters. They are lost, utterly, without
hope in the world, except they belong to Christ and the Holy
Spirit regenerate them and convert them to believe the truth of
Christ. This large crowd learned that
Jesus was there and they gathered. Because of Lazarus' witness,
they're like, this man is drawing all the more, even more. So let's put him to death as
well. Now I want to talk a little bit
about sovereignty in this narrative. God sovereignly purposes in the
hearts of the Jews the execution of Jesus. I've already taught
that over there in Caiaphas when Caiaphas was crying out in chapter
11. You guys know nothing. You bunch
of dummies. Don't you know it's better for
him to die than for the whole nation to perish? Don't you know
that? That's what Caiaphas says to his kinsmen, to the Sanhedrin. Don't you know that? And then
John, the writer here, says he did not speak this of his own
accord but prophesied. What did he prophesy? He said
of his own accord what he felt in his heart. And what he meant
was what he meant. But the truth of that statement
had far-reaching implications. Jesus would die for his elect
of all the nations of the world so that they would not perish.
But Israel as a nation was always doomed to perish. There's no covenant outside of
Christ. There's no promise outside of Christ. Abraham had a son named Ishmael and the
scripture says he was not counted as a son. But God said, okay,
I'll give you all the temporary promises that I promised your
true son, which is Isaac. But he's not the son. Why? Because
he's not the son I told you about. He's not my elect son. He's not
the one I chose for you. So I don't care how many children
you have, Abraham, and every one that you have, I will make
them as numerous as the sands on the shore. You're really populating
the earth here, buddy. Stem to the plan here. And I'm
being a little funny here. It doesn't matter. Because Ishmael's
descendants were not counted as the ones of promise. Are some
of Ishmael's descendants elect? You better believe it. I know
some of them. But God's election stands. God's
sovereignty stands in everything that happened here. Everything
that happened here. We look myopically sometimes
instead of seeing the whole narrative of the gospel. Jesus says in
John 11, when he got the news from Martha, this illness will
not lead in death, but that the son of God may be glorified through
it. So he says there that the reality of Lazarus' death is
under the sovereign control of God, that God, before the world
began purpose, that Lazarus would get sick and die. So that on
the fourth day, Jesus would raise him from the dead and Jesus would
be glorified as God, because only God can do these things.
And that Jesus would be glorified in many coming to faith in Him. And that Jesus would be glorified
in the hatred of Him. I want you to think about this
for a second. How does He glorify His hatred? Because that's the
intention of God. God is always glorified. What does it mean
to be glorified? To be revealed for who He is. God is glorified in the hatred
of Christ because in the hatred of Christ it brings about the
ultimate end of what God has decreed before the foundation
of the world, that He would be put to death at the exact second
that God had ordained for Him to die. Because so many were excited
about Jesus and looking to see more about Jesus and excited
about Lazarus and looking to believe in Jesus because of Lazarus'
witness, God put in the hearts of these people, we have got
to kill them now. Now is the time. You know, it's
the furthest thing from what they should have done according
to their own customs and law. It was almost as if they spat
in the face of God publicly. to put Jesus to death during
the Passover. And their own people would have
seen that and went, these guys have lost their minds. What happens during the trial
of Jesus? What did the Jews of Jerusalem
say when Pilate washes his hands Remember that narrative? What
do they say? What shall I do with this man?
I find no fault with him. I cannot kill him unjustly. He
must take the place of another. For me to arrest him, what am
I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to release? The murderer Barabbas. Release
Barabbas. Now what am I to do? Crucify
him. Keep that picture in your head
as you see what unfolds here. The anger and the enraged mind
of these officials is under the sovereignty of God. The next
day, the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that
Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So now we see another crowd.
The crowd that followed Him there, the crowd that heard of Lazarus,
now there's a large crowd that heard He had come. They came
to Jerusalem. the next day. And they did something
so out of the ordinary for the Passover. What is it? They took branches of palm trees,
they cut them off the palm trees, and they went out and they shook
them. I have a palm tree in my yard. My neighbor has one. The
breeze blows, it goes, shhh. It's just a pleasant sound, to
be honest with you. It's just, you think of tropic
islands that aren't having hurricanes. That's what you want. You want
to hear that sound. And you can buy CDs and you can try to mimic
it, but you can't get the beauty of that pure sound. Well, this
was not something that was normative for the Passover. They never
did that. And I'll tell you what it was for in a minute. They
cried out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. What does that mean? What has happened here? All of
a sudden, they want to see more about Jesus. They want to learn
more about Jesus. They want to see more about Lazarus. And here
it is. Facebook's on fire. And everybody's
getting ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding on their camel
phones. And I mean, they're just excited about all the news they're
hearing about this Jesus. The kids are going, I want a
camel phone. And the bus has gotten people
excited. So they go and in the feast of
booths, it was commanded of the Jews to go out and cut palm branches
and to shake them. as a time of worship. Sort of
like some of us like to shake tambourines. Shake the palm branches. As a symbol of prosperity, and
a symbol of peace, and a symbol of saying we're
joyful. Basically all is well. It is
well with our soul for our King has come. Blessing and honor
and joy and prosperity has come to Israel. But they use those
palm wrenches and they cry out something that's extremely important.
They say, Hosanna, Hosanna, literally translated means what? Give salvation
now. That's the literal translation
of that. So as they're shaking these palm trees out of season,
out of obedience, They're worshiping God with joy and pleasure and
looking forward to the prosperity and the freedom that comes with
the man they're shaking them to, Jesus. And they're saying,
bring salvation now, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, worshiping
Jesus as the one who's bringing salvation to them. So it just escalated, didn't
it? This crowd gathering turned into a full out parade of worship.
outside the purview and the parameters of the law of Moses for the Passover
to begin with. So now Jesus has caused all of
Israel, the world, to disobey the law. Think about it. What about your
antinomians? Gospel of grace loving blind
people. That's what we'd hear today.
That's not how you're supposed to worship. He didn't say Amen
with the right amount of syllables. I'm just being funny. Praise toward God, Brother Trey
read out of Psalm 118, which is part of a larger section of
Psalms called the Halal, that is read every morning by Jews. Every time they gather, every
time they worship, every time they pray, they read all of that. That's where the Hosanna comes
from. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna,
verse 25 and 26 of Psalm 118. It is a prayer to God to say,
bless the Messiah. In the Greek world, it would
be bless the Christ, bless the Christ, bless the true king,
bless the only one who comes from God. You see what they were
saying about Jesus? By their actions, by their worship.
They're saying that this is who this man is. He is the King of
Israel. He is the one that comes from
God. He is Messiah. He is the Lord. And all is well. Isn't that what
we think when we're sitting in a hammock and the wind's blowing
through the palm trees? All is well. And then Jesus found a young
donkey colt. Same thing. Don't get upset.
Don't be triggered by differences in text. Just as it is written, fear not,
daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey's colt. Now I find that interesting that
John wrote fear not, because it's not in Zechariah 9. As a matter of fact, Zechariah
9 says, Rejoice greatly, not fear not. Zechariah 9 says, Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to
you, righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on
a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. That's what Zechariah 9 says.
That's what these people are crying out. But then they're
adding into this fear not. Fear not. Imagine had Jesus come in on
a large white stallion. A big Clydesdale that stood up. You could stand underneath it
as a grown man. With all of his disciples following after him
with palm branches. And he walks in on, he drives
in on this large kingly animal. When a king would go into battle
and the battle was won, the king would return back to Jerusalem
or to his people in almost every culture, riding the largest stallion as a symbol of headship and a
symbol of authority and a symbol of strength, a symbol of victory. And it would bring with him behind
him all the spoils of war, whether it be slaves or treasures or
grain or cattle, wood, And people would worship and
praise and exalt the king and say, wow, this is our king, he
keeps us, he provides for us, he does all that he's going to
do for us. And at the very end of the line, just like our parades
we have today, so at our parades we put the stallions in the back
because they drop a plop and it's not good for the marching
band to come through afterward. But at the very end, the cleanup
crew, carrying all the stuff, Taking all the spoils of the
king that are on wagons being run and carried by large stallions,
when it's all said and done at the center of the square, the
average person and all the servants of the king, they get donkeys.
And they load those donkeys up as heavy as they can make it,
and they put all the spoils where they're supposed to go in the
storehouses. And they begin to disperse the treasures across
the nation. A donkey is a symbol of peace
and prosperity, not a symbol of war. I mean, do you imagine
being a king and lining up with all the finest entry men on stallions
and your enemies out there on mules? I mean, it's a laughing stock. But the Bible, God through Zechariah
had prophesied that the king of kings would come in not as
the victorious warlord, but as the peace bringer. And many times throughout the
Gospels, especially what we've already seen in John, many times
we see over and over again where it says the multitudes desire
to make him king by force. How does that work? Well, you've
got five thousand hungry men and you're standing there with
twelve others and they say you're king, you're king. You say no, they stone you to
death. So Jesus supernaturally just sort of disappeared from
their midst every single time. Why? Because it wasn't His purpose
to become a national king for a kingdom of earth. He was not going to be the one
to bring Israel out of Rome or the other way around. Both. He
was not going to be the one to establish temple worship. as
it should be. He's not going to be the one
to sit on the physical throne of David because David's throne
is over. Jesus is the throne that will
last forever. But they say fear not, not just
rejoice. You remember the beginning dialogue?
I love Luke's gospel. Believe it or not, I do love
Luke's gospel too. But I love Luke's gospel where it talks
about the buzz around John the Baptist. And I think to myself,
when it says they earnestly waited to hear what was to become of
this boy, and then it just sort of cuts off. Next thing you see
John doing is coming out without shaving and long hair and eating
bugs and yelling, The Kingdom of God is coming! I mean, what
a disappointment. What a disappointment culturally.
Maybe this will be the guy that comes. Maybe this will be the
man. They were all looking because it was a miracle in which he
was conceived and born. But he was the precursor, the
one to come to proclaim the coming of Christ, the one who would
come in the name of the Lord. But they say, fear not. Fear not. They wanted Jesus to
bring the end of fear. They wanted Jesus to bring the
end of slavery. Just like Caiaphas speaking out
of his flesh, they also spoke and worshipped out of their flesh.
Jesus did bring the end of something, but not the one they thought.
Jesus brought victory over sin for His people. Jesus did not bring victory for
a nation. Jesus was not a zealot for Israel's
kingdom. He was. The redeemer of the true
Israel. He is the one true God come from
God to make him known and to redeem his people from the wrath
of God. Jesus brought peace as the king
of all kings to all nations, to all tribes, to all tongues. That is all those for whom he
will soon lay down his life willfully. He will bring His elect out of
all the peoples of the world. Zechariah 9 verse 10 says, I
will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from
Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off and He shall
speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to
sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. Beloved, you and I, we see that. We know that the rule and the
reign of Christ is to all the nations of the earth in that
the elect are part of all. Part of this strange cultural
error that I think we need to pay attention to in our day is
this idea of America being God's nation. Israel being God's nation. The alliance of allies, you know,
remember World War I and II? It was always, we are, that's
where Israel became a state again. Because of the Zionists and their
constant reminding of the allies, you know your God gave you victory. You better not mess with us because
we're His. They're still looking for the
Messiah to come and give them a kingdom on earth. Somebody said, well, these things
aren't, you're talking about eschatology, you're talking about dispensational
doctrine. Well, the hermeneutic through
which you read the Bible, if it's not the hermeneutic of grace,
and I'm sure I didn't coin that, then it's the hermeneutic of
error. If it's not a universal, when
I say universal, I don't mean for everybody, I mean from start
to finish, an unchanging, let me use, if it's not an immutable
decree, then it's not God's. If it's not an immutable covenant,
it doesn't belong to God. If it's not an everlasting love,
from everlasting to everlasting, it's not a love of God. Jesus dominion is from sea to
sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. This Passover
that all these people gathered to do, they were remembering
the mercy of God where he took them out of the bondage of slavery
from Egypt. And he did so by killing every
firstborn in Egypt, in every household where there was not
the blood of a lamb on the doorposts. The way superstitious people
read scripture is they think, well, if I put blood on my door,
then God will bless me. Or if I put oil on my hands,
then God will heal me. Or if I read this, or if I do
what Israel did, then this will happen. Or if I do what Moses
did, then this will happen. Or if I do what... You see the
point? But what Passover shows us, if
Christ's blood was not shed for you, You are not blessed by God. It's very obvious to us because
we have the Holy Spirit and we are the sons and daughters of
God, born by the Spirit and given the gift of faith to trust in
the faithfulness of Christ. The Passover, they remembered
the mercy of God by the blood of the lamb, but they could not
see that it was truly and ultimately fulfilled now in this king that
they called king. And remember what he told, what
the disciples told him as he was going into Bethany, which
was very close to Jerusalem. Remember what the disciples told
him when he says, we need to go. What did they say? No, no,
no, no, no, no. It's too hostile for you. You
can't go near Jerusalem. They're looking to kill you,
master. They're looking to arrest you. They're looking to hurt
you. You can't do this. And Jesus is like, I'm going.
And what does Thomas say? Let's just go die with him. This is the end of our ministry.
Might as well enjoy it. Hoorah! Let's go. Get me a donkey. I mean a horse. We're going.
Let's just go down in a flame. And Jesus went into the area
and he met with the family and he taught a little bit and he
was seen by crowds. The last thing you'd think he'd
do would be what? Ride into town with a parade. But why would he do that? For
it was God's will that he do that. And this is the very thing
that pushed the point to the Jews. And they said to themselves,
this guy's got to die now. And you recognize your trial
and your death was like that. You didn't get appeals. Not as a Jew. You could appeal
to Caesar as a Roman citizen, as we see in the Pauline epistles. But when Rome executed a prisoner, you're guilty, let's go get him
ready. What's the first part of that?
You're arrested and you're beaten. Your body is destroyed permanently
by the whippings. So much so that the 40 lashes
were called 40 minus 1 because they believed in their testing
that 40 was the number in which most men died. They died. So they backed it up. That's
why they have a 40 minus one. They gave that to Jesus, then
they stripped him and they mocked him. They put a crown of thorns
on his head and then he faced two trials. And this is what he was looking
for. This is what God was purposing at that right time that he would
die at the right time. No one in the Sanhedrin would
have had a meeting and said, OK, Jesus is in town for the
Passover. Let's arrest Him and kill Him
now before the Sabbath. Let's just do it. Where is He? I don't know, but I know He's
here. Let's get Him. No, but when He marched Himself down the streets
and everybody was worshiping, they're like, we cannot have
this man interrupting our worship of the one true God. tomorrow. Well, it's five days from now,
from here. But you know, this week is too
important for us. We're going to get Him. And in doing this openly and
publicly, this is part of what Jesus expresses when He says,
I lay down my life, willingly. I lay down my life for my sheep.
I do these things for my people to save them from their sins
and I will raise it up again. And in verse 16, his disciples
who were with him, look at this, they're watching all this and
they're seeing people. Imagine not knowing. See, Jesus
knew the disciples, especially Peter. Can you imagine Peter?
He probably did have two swords. even though Jesus said there's
enough here. Jesus probably took some other tunics and saw, I
mean Peter, took some other tunics and bought some sword. I mean
he was, you know, he was open carry, concealed carry, back
carry, front carry. He was zealot to protect Jesus
as we see in the arrest of Jesus. He's chopping off ears and all
sorts of stuff. Terrible aim. Or he's really sharp, pun intended. But these guys are walking into
town. Jesus is fearing for his life. Multitudes are coming around.
Now Jesus is like, okay, here's how I'm going to go into town.
I mean, imagine what they thought. He must be tired. They knew the scripture. They
knew Zechariah. They're thinking he must be tired. Oh, poor Jesus.
We'll walk alongside of him when it's not like a donkey gallops. in this slow procession into
Jerusalem, and the multitudes start to see, and they're chopping
down palm tree branches, and they're waving them, and they're
screaming, Hosanna, blessed be the one that comes in the name
of the Lord, O King of mercy, O Savior of your people, bless
you, praise you, glory be to God. I mean, that's an amazing
thing. And the disciples are going,
we're all going to die. I mean, that's what they're thinking. Maybe some of them are even thinking,
I don't know, Judas is probably thinking, man, we're about to
get rich. These people are going to give us everything. Look how
they love Jesus. Whatever they're thinking, they
didn't think rightly about what was really happening. They did
not put two and two together to remember that Zechariah prophesied
that Messiah would come in on a colt. The same way they didn't understand
when John 2 verse 22, when he says, you tear this temple down
and I'll rebuild it in three days. And they said, we're not
done yet. It's been 48 years and you're
going to rebuild it all in three days? Lunatic. And the disciples are going,
what in the world? Just like they didn't understand when he spoke to the woman of
Sychar at the well of Jacob in John 4. Just like they didn't
understand when He spoke to Nicodemus in John 3 when He says, I don't
get it. How can I be born again? Don't
marvel, O teacher of Israel. You don't understand spiritual
things because you're not born in a spiritual way. You're born
in an earthly way. So the only thing you can ever
do is remember and see and understand things in an earthly sense, a
fleshly sense. Where's your jar? What do you
mean? What do you mean we don't have
the word of God? We are Moses people. We are Abraham's
people. God is our father. If God were
your father, you would be trying to kill me. Who's trying to kill
you? God or demon? I mean, the list goes on and
on and on. Give zero, zero credit to the
flesh when you believe the true gospel. You did nothing. You came to no conclusion. You
made no decision. You did not get smarter. God in His mercy gave it all
to you. Keep that in mind when we deal
with people who act like the Pharisees and act like the crowds
and act like the disciples. Could you imagine the fireside
chat that night? That stuff isn't recorded because
it would be talk show worthy, not gospel worthy. They didn't get it, and they
were fearful to come to the city, and now they're seeing all this.
Many times the multitudes would try to make Jesus king, and there
He is right into the town, not like a king, but like a servant. But He takes the praises and
the blessings of a king. And this is confusing to them.
And the Bible says, not until after His glorification and the
giving of the Spirit did they understand these things. They didn't understand the full
implications of what was happening until that point. So now we see
these two crowds that we've been talking about. Those who had
seen Him raise Lazarus from the dead and followed Him around.
And those who had heard of this raising from the dead and gone
to see. They were a witness to Christ. Sometime last year, I remember
Katie taking a class in one of her college classes about time
management or something was talking about time management and 168
hours in a week. And I began to think about that
and I thought and I posited a few weeks on it and I, hmm, there's
a spiritual aspect to the time we have here. So I wrote an article
about it. and it always gets some notice
sometimes when people find it. Well, I just never thought about
that. I was thinking about it again this morning, that how much time
I have, and over the last three weeks, how much more time I've
had. Can't use a screwdriver, I wasn't preaching, it was just,
now what? And we really give that time,
that margin, because everything I want to do when I have margin,
I couldn't do. Does that make sense? I've got a whole list
of things I want to do, but now I can't do them. So what am I
to do? Mope! That's what I'm to do. It's number
one on my list. I'm to mope. It says it right there in Maps,
chapter 2. The Exodus from Egypt, they moped
for 40 years. That's what I'm supposed to do.
No, but it's what we do. It's what we do in our flesh.
We mope and we mourn and we can't do anything when some people
can't even move, walk, speak or think. And most of all, so many people
cannot see the glory of Christ. So we give time to what is truly
vital to us by the power of God's spirit that we are reminded As
Paul would say, that's one of the things about getting into
the Gospels or getting into a historical narrative in the exposition.
It can take us away some time from the practical instruction. Make good use of the time. Physical
fitness is of some value. It doesn't mean it's no value,
some value, but spiritual fitness is of all value. So we need to put in perspective
this reality. Just a little side note. But
as these people here, their entire world revolved around their fearful
desire to worship God in a way that pleased Him so that they
would not be lost. Live and speak and act and do
and spend. But Jesus comes along and says,
I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus comes along and says, you're
the sons of Satan. Jesus tells them the synoptics
that the Jews, the spiritual leaders, the spiritual so-called
quote pastors of Israel, you put requirements on the hearts
and the minds and the consciences of people that they cannot bear
that you yourselves are not keeping. Then he says to the multitudes,
unless your righteousness is greater than the Pharisees, you're
going to be condemned. So when I look at my life and
when you look at your life as someone who's redeemed by grace,
is not the undercurrent, and it's not even the current, is
it not the massive flow of the current of our hope and our focus?
Should it not be on the gospel of grace? Should the witness
of our life, not in visible ways, but in oral ways, in time ways, be somewhat reflective of our
thoughts, isn't it? Remember when I started out and
said everybody's an evangelist? Remember I never really finished
that thought. I thought it would be a little fitting here. We're
all an evangelist in that we share what we really love. And
friends, all of us, the elect of God, we're going to share
what our flesh loves. And then when we share the Lord,
it's because His mercy has helped us to peer through what the flesh
has been covering Christ up with. And see, unconverted people will
say to you, oh, that's because you're not a Christian because
you struggle with this. Is it wrong for me to love my
children and share their pictures? No, not at all. Is it wrong for
me to enjoy a book or a movie or a vacation? No, not at all. But how easy is it? Let's just
show you something. How easy is it to have so much
temporary joy in all this stuff without ever giving one thought
of that 168 hours of that week to the fact that God granted
us this for our good, for our joy, as a blessing. So in the
minimum, in the minimum, we ought to give God all the glory for
everything we have, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But you
know, for me, I see culturally people will say, well, praise
the Lord when everything's good. I'm the opposite. I see myself
tending to want to give thanks to God more when I'm suffering
than when I'm not. Because when I'm not, it's almost
like I'm just sort of walking and carrying on without any thought. So praise God for the suffering.
Praise God for the season of moping. Praise God for the season
of what some people would say spiritual failings. Praise God
for the season when He reminds us of how dire our position would
be if He left us in our sins without Christ. Praise God when
we doubt or we worry. And then praise Him all the other
times too. Let us be a witness with our
mouth to proclaim the goodness and testify of the goodness of
Jesus Christ in any circumstance as God sees fit. We're all different. But I'll tell you, Church, stay
in the Word of God. God will put a word in you and
you will have something to say. You don't have to repeat what
I say, for if you do, you will not have walked the journey that
I've walked and you're just a ditto head. I want you to be alive,
engaged. I want your spiritual life to
be the glue that holds everything else together. But to close all this out, the world, look at verse 19. So the Pharisees said to one
another, you see that you're gaining nothing. Look, the world
has gone after. These Jews were irate and indignant
and obstinate. They knew that he was God. They
knew that he came from God. They knew that he was the son
of God. They knew that he had the power of God. They knew that
he was the word of God. But when it boiled down to it,
he stepped into their life of joy. There's a reason why I gave
that pastoral teaching there. It wasn't necessarily related
to the text and instruction, but it's a good reminder. Because
many people in our culture, remember how we started out talking about
this? Many people in our culture who live a religious life and
call it Christian living. who live a life that they think
by implication that they know they're in the Lord. They believe
all sorts of things about Christ. They use their Bible every morning
to drink their coffee with. Nothing wrong with that. I think
you should. But in it, their eyes have not been opened. The
Spirit has not given them life. They do not belong to Christ.
But yet they live a life attached to some version of Him. Sometimes
even walking in a manner worthy of the elect and the call that
we have. But ultimately, by the end of
it all, they will show themselves to what they truly are because
they will add to the gospel something that's not required. Something
that Christ, you realize if you add to the gospel, it's something
that Jesus must then do in order for you to be saved. We have
to think, well, it's something I must do. Well, that's just
absurd. Because the gospel, by definition, is what Christ has
accomplished. So if we add something to that, well, this must happen,
then Jesus must make that happen. And the Bible says that the gospel
is complete. That the salvation of God's people is done. It is
finished, Christ said. Not as execution. He wasn't saying,
blah, blah, blah. He didn't need to say it is finished,
then die. It's like comic book narratives.
It's just redundant. I'm picking up this microphone.
I'm going to throw it at you. Just do it. Stop telling everybody. We don't add to the gospel, but
those who are not born of God ultimately add to the gospel.
Those who are not born of God ultimately twist the person of
Christ. Those who are not born of God ultimately begin to put
hope and joy into everything else except Christ. But even
we who do belong to Him can what? Can be snatched into those things.
So our only hope is Christ. He died for us. He lived for
us. He was raised to life for us.
He intercedes for us. He has secured us in Him forever. And with the last little inkling,
the smallest little place, when we can find no faith and no assurance
in this world or in our flesh, in our mind, when we think we
are utterly reprobate, the smallest little seed of faith that is
only in Christ alone is enough to shake the mountains of doubt
and despair and bring them crumbling down. That's that image. It's nothing to do with life's
obstacles. has everything to do with spiritual obstacles. And the obstacle facing Jesus
and his disciples this day was not an obstacle for Christ, for
Jesus, because he knew it was a launching pad to glory. It
was a launching pad to redemption of His people. It was a launching
pad to the finishing of the work that He began, that He had decreed
before the foundations of the world to accomplish perfectly
by the will of God. And this launching pad Under
the sovereignty of God, the other obstacle then was how does this
truth of Christ get to the nations? How does it get to the world?
How does it get beyond the river to the edge of the world and
to all the seas? How does Christ and His message
get over there without technology? Well, the Jews said it. The whole
world has gone after Him. They were exaggerating the point,
but in their mind, their whole world had gone after him. They were losing everyone to
Jesus in their mind. Even themselves, amongst themselves,
they were divided. Some believing, some hating. It's almost like they were saying
this, look what we've done. We have lost everything. That's
what they mean when they say we have gained nothing. We have
gained nothing by letting this man live for three years. We
should have got him in the beginning. We've gained nothing. Look what
we've done. You see what they've just did?
They actually gave themselves credit for Jesus' ministry. We've allowed this man to continue.
Now we've gone and lost our own people. See, the vileness of
man's depravity will ignore the truth when it glares them in
the face. When they can see it with their eyes and when they
know it in their soul, they desire not to embrace it, but to kill
it. And everywhere I look, everywhere
I go, every person I talk to who's a brother in the faith,
they're always talking about the persecution and their suffering
by those around them, those not around them, those from abroad,
and it's constant. If this is how God the Father
divinely brought about the redemption of His people through the hatred
of His Son, do we not think that we're going to experience the
same thing? Friends, let me tell you something. You can't have
both. You're not going to be loved
by the world and be loved by the Lord. The good thing is that
we love God because He first loved us. And as God has called us out
of the world, we are not of the world, but we are in it. That
is where we are. We are to remain there. We are
to remain here. We are to remain assembled. We
are to remain together. We are to rejoice in the sovereignty
of God in salvation through the person of Jesus Christ. For if
it were not for His grace, we would desire to kill Him. Kill
the gospel, kill the truth, kill Jesus Himself. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.