Wednesday, June 1, 2022 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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What do we see here in this text? So, Jesus gives instructions.

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Okay, what else? How do you know he's a king?

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Yes. So, the followers, the disciples, those who are traveling in this big crowd, coming towards Jerusalem, begin to sing, begin to give praise to Christ, and they say he's a king.

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So, this is their response. They call him a king.

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One wonders where they got that idea from. What did he do that showed he was so kingly?

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Ah, yes, but we're in this passage, because there's a bunch of stuff

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Jesus did that showed his authority. But what makes them suddenly break out in this song?

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This song catches our attention, doesn't it? Praise to the king. What inspires him to sing this song?

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We have him on a, he's riding on a, the colt of a donkey? Okay, the foal of a donkey?

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Yes. So, we'll list that for Lazarus.

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Mighty works. Mighty works are listed.

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So, we went through Mark's account of the same event on Palm Sunday, on Sunday morning.

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We talked about that. And there was a passage in Zechariah, which reads this way.

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Zechariah 9, verses 9 and 10. Rejoice greatly,

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O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you.

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He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey.

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A colt, the foal of a donkey. So, they begin to sing praise to the king, because here he is riding on the promised donkey.

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Well, I'm no donkey rider myself.

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Yes, well, horses were the animal of war and donkeys were the animal of peace.

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We remember the story of one of the judges who he and his sons, in a time of peace, rode on donkeys throughout the whole region over which they had governance.

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And it was a symbol of a time of peace and prosperity. It's a very short note in the book of Judges. But also we have

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Jacob's prophecy concerning the descendant of Judah named Shiloh, who has a donkey.

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And so, this is a symbol of symbol of peace. Underscored is

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Zechariah 9, verse 10, the very next verse. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem.

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The horse is an animal for battle. A donkey is an animal of peace. The battle bow shall be cut off.

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He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

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And Jesus is going to have something to say about that when he gets to the temple. But clearly, when

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Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, he is intentionally fulfilling prophecy that he himself, by the

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Holy Spirit, gave to the prophet Zechariah. Yeah, I think that when we think about the evidences of his unique personhood, we see him riding on a donkey that had never been ridden before.

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And we see him being, well, when you go back all the way, let's put it this way, he was born of a virgin, a woman who never knew a man, and he rode on a donkey into Jerusalem that had never been ridden before, and he was laid in a tomb in which no one had ever been laid.

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Which would be a nice way to tell the story, following that line. But also, recall that he can calm the waves, the wind and the waves, so he can certainly ride an unbroken donkey.

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But he's intentionally, that the point of the full is the point of the prophecy. The prophecy said this is the way it was going to be, and this is the way it happened.

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So they are very much seeing this fulfillment of prophecy and then responding to it.

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Do we have any other evidences of his kingship, of authority? And what are the responses?

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So he cleans up the temple. Yes. Do you remember anybody else who had to clean up the temple?

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Remember anybody else who cleaned up the temple? Josiah had to clean up the temple, didn't he?

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And why did he have to clean up the temple? Because of all the wickedness. The wickedness of the reign of Manasseh.

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52 years of wickedness. The scripture says that Manasseh filled Jerusalem up from one end to the other with innocent blood.

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And when Josiah came on the scene, the temple was a wreck. And in the process of them trying to restore the temple and trying to clean it up and put it back into a serviceable state, they found a copy of the law.

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Which apparently everybody had forgotten that they had one. Hadn't been read.

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Nobody knew what was in it. And they began to read the law.

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They began to read the law and they began to realize how far they had been removed from covenant -keeping in the life of Israel.

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Jesus is coming up to the temple as well and he's going to cleanse out the temple. And how does

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Jesus see the city of Jerusalem? How does he see it?

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Something to weep over? How did the

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Jews see Jerusalem? It was

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Mecca. It was a place to worship as well as a place in which you could worship.

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It was everything. They viewed it in the highest regard.

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Jerusalem for Jerusalem's sake. The temple for the temple's sake. They did not understand that they themselves were being idolatrous.

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And Jesus came and began to... He didn't have nice things to say about Jerusalem and the temple.

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This disturbed people. I want you to notice something. How did the

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Pharisees respond? Obviously, those coming with Jesus who had seen his great and mighty works, doing all these amazing things, seeing him ride upon the donkey, they give praise to the

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King. They sing Psalm 118. They begin to praise the Jesus of Nazareth as the

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Messiah, as the King. How did the Pharisees respond? How did the scribes respond to that? Yeah, yeah.

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So they say, rabbi, rebuke your disciples. You're responsible for what your disciples are saying, right?

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If you don't, if you don't check them, you're gonna be guilty of these blasphemous claims that they're making.

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Okay, now what is he saying? But he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.

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And this oblique reference not only greatly insults the scribes and the

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Pharisees and Jerusalem as a whole, but is a great lead -up to why he begins to weep over Jerusalem and seeing it for its state that it is.

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Why do we say that? Because Jesus is quoting

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Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 11. Stones crying out? I'm sorry, what is that from?

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Stones crying out? You have to go back and look. Now listen to the way that this is, this is set up.

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Woe to him who covets evil. Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house.

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Yeah, here in just a little bit, we're gonna hear about the evil gain that the

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Pharisees and scribes were getting for their house. Even the last two mites of the widow, they'll grab anything they can.

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Evil gain for their house. That it may set his nest on high, that it may be delivered from the power of disaster.

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What did they say? Just like in the days of Jeremiah, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the

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Lord. They believed that Jerusalem was undefeatable because of their temple. You give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples.

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My father's house is a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves. You're cutting off the

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Gentiles instead of bringing them in. You give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples and sin against your soul, for the stone will cry out.

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For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the timber.

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Verse 12. Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed.

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Manasseh built the city with bloodshed. Josiah came and cleaned up the temple. Scribes and Pharisees were building a city full of bloodshed, and they were guilty of all the blood of the prophets whom they had willingly opposed.

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Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity. So the

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Pharisees and scribes, of course, are experts in the scripture. There's only one place really he could go to to find stones crying out, and it's not a favorable passage.

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But Jesus uses that in rebuking them. They say to him, rebuke your disciples, he says, and he responds in a way that rebukes them.

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They were silent, the stones would cry out. Where does that come from? So he's pronouncing judgment, and as he draws near, he sees the city and weeps over it, saying, if you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace.

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Why did these scribes, who spent a majority of their lives carefully, even reverently, copying the

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Old Testament scriptures, how often would they have had these whole blocks of scripture memorized?

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How often would they have been filled with with hope in reading these passages about Messiah, and about the promised new covenant, and so on?

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And the Pharisees, who were literally lashed bits of scripture to their hands and their foreheads, and thought it all important to know the word.

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How is it that the common people, traveling with Jesus from Galilee, know to sing

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Psalm 118, see the evidence? Oh, Zechariah 9, here we go, let's praise the

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Messiah. How is it that they know to praise the King, but then these religious leaders do not?

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Really, what makes the difference? Is it that the non -expert, non -elite, lower class, is by virtue of their lowliness holy?

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Anybody who is of power and uniqueness automatically damned by God?

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No. No. Most of Jesus' disciples were from the artisan class, the middle class.

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They weren't from the homeless class. Jesus himself, of course, is the heir of all things.

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You can't get more elite than that. And yes, several of the people who lived hand -to -mouth followed him and rejoiced in him.

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This is not what makes the difference. What makes the difference? Jesus says, Jesus says what makes the difference in verse 42, if you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

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They are hidden from your eyes. How could they be hidden from their eyes? They were happening right in front of them.

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These things were happening right in front of them. How, okay, how much more obvious can you get?

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I love the moment in the debate between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens.

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When Doug Wilson's trying to point out the value, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of the

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Old Testament prophecies, and Christopher Hitchens points out the fact that these fulfillment of prophecies were well known in advance and arranged.

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I mean, they arranged the donkey. I mean, you can you can self -fulfill prophecies, don't you know?

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But in this case, this is very much intentional. There's no happenstance about this at all. It's obvious.

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Jesus is making it as obvious as obvious can be. And yet, these things are hidden from their eyes.

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He did raise Lazarus from the dead, and everybody saw it. He did do all these mighty miracles.

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He did give signs and wonders time and time again, the most convincing, most most proving evidences ever.

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And yet, they are hidden from their eyes. Well, that's what judgment is.

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And to have the truth of God hidden from someone's eyes when it's self -evident in any other respect, that is the judgment of God.

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For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground.

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And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

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Of course, this did occur. He's saying, you will be surrounded by your enemies, you and your children.

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And indeed, that happened. And Jerusalem was destroyed.

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So Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem, but he's also pronouncing judgment over it. He's not rejoicing at the fall of his enemies, but he is nonetheless declaring it to be so.

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I have sat by the bed of a man who was reprobate, close to death, defiant and profane to the end.

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And I did tell him the gospel, and I did warn him of what was to come.

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And by the grace of God, I wept there beside his bed. He didn't know what to do.

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He had no idea. It was blind to him, though he had every advantage in the world. This should tell us honestly how to approach situations like that.

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Let our hearts be like the heart of Christ when we encounter these situations.

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This would be our heart. Compassion and love is not something in which the truth is denied, but one in which it is delivered in the way that is

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Christlike. We see his heart here. We see his heart. When his authority is on display, there really are only two options, aren't there?

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There are those who worship him. There are those who rejoice in him, right? They worship and they rejoice and they get excited about that.

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They want to give their own hearty amen to the authority and the glory of Jesus. The alternative is, cut that out.

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Make them be quiet. We don't want to hear that. Those are the two different options.

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Those are the two different responses to the evidences of the authority of Christ.

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At the end, we see the difference, don't we, in verses 47 and 48? He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him.

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They sought to destroy him and were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

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And so we see that those who feared man were so ensnared by their fear of man that they could do nothing.

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They were all tied up in knots. They hated Christ. They wanted to kill him. They were tied up in knots, fearing man.

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And the people were very attentive to hear him. They wanted to know more. So there's also a further distinction between the responses to the authority of Christ.

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An impotent rage against his authority, or an eager listening and adhering to his authority.

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I want to know more. Please tell me more. So those are the two responses to the authority of Christ.

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And the authority of Christ will be all the more expressed and examined in chapter 20.