The Coronation of Christ

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Well, we're going to begin our time today with a little bit of a study in, you could call it, current politics or current popular events.

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I want to start with something that's about to take place in a few months' time. In just a few months, on Saturday, May 6th to be exact,

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King Charles III is scheduled to be coronated or is to have his coronation at Westminster Abbey in London, England.

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It will be the first time since June of 1953 that one of the English monarchs has been crowned king or queen.

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As per usual, and if anyone follows along with these kind of things, I confess

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I don't usually, the event is expected to be quite spectacular.

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At the coronation, if you know anything about the coronation proceedings, King Charles will go through six steps before he is paid homage and officially crowned the king of England.

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There's recognition, there's the oaths, there's the anointing and this long, drawn -out process.

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Once the process has taken place, King Charles is going to take his seat on a 700 -year -old coronation chair, something that has been constructed, and this comes almost out of fiction, at least in my mind, constructed out of what has been called the

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Stone of Destiny, an ancient slab of stone seized from the

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Scots by King Edward I in the 13th century.

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Following this coronation, what will happen is the king and a crowd of about 10 ,000 attendees who have been invited will follow the procession to Windsor Castle, where there will be a one -day event, a massive one -day event with celebrations and performances and all kinds of things, a one -day event that's going to require the manpower of thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars.

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While this event, if you follow it along at all, is expected to be accompanied by great pomp and the usual royal tradition, observers are noting that there's something different about this particular coronation.

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It's a concern that they have, and the chief concern is that unlike many coronations in the past, relatively few people are actually interested in the event.

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There are the normal onlookers and the people that love the monarchy, but even as event organizers have sought to invite celebrities and musicians to be present and to perform at the event, everyone seems to be turning them down.

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I read an interesting Forbes article that even though this is a monumental occasion in the history of England, even the

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Spice Girls don't want to sing at the coronation, the king's coronation. And so instead what people are asking, many people are asking that the monarchy be abolished.

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People in Australia have petitioned to have the king's face never put on their money, but to have

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Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, on the back of their coinage. And some organizers have publicly called the situation a massive disappointment.

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Despite all of the pageantry, people just aren't that interested in the new king and in his kingdom.

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It's kind of humorous, isn't it? But I share this brief look at modern events because today, believe it or not, we're actually looking at a similar event.

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In the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the passage that is before us has actually been called by many credible commentators, the coronation of Christ.

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That is the crowning day of Christ as king over his creation.

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And it's a familiar story. And kids, you'll recognize this story. It's the familiar story of Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.

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It's a scene that if you've had children, you know, no doubt, has been illustrated a thousand times in children's storybook

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Bibles around the world. And yet, when many people read this particular passage, even many

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Christians today, perhaps like the coronation of King Charles, many people gloss over it and treat it as an insignificant event in the timeline of Christ's life and ministry.

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It's not a sensational miracle, and so the charismatics don't pay attention. And it's not a provocative teaching, and so the theo -bros of the world don't pay attention either.

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But in fact, many Christians, I would say even many

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Christians who read the narrative in their daily Bible reading, read this narrative, excuse me, in their daily

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Bible reading today, they're going to miss a significant amount of all the meaning that is here in this passage.

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And for people that have probably read this passage today in their morning reading, if you were to ask them this afternoon what it was that they read earlier in the day, they wouldn't even be able to remember, despite all of the fulfillment of the

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Old Testament prophecy that we're going to find in this passage, and all of the potent symbolism. And I hope to explain some of that symbolism today.

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Many Christians today just aren't that interested in Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

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And therefore, I would suggest they are missing eternal and cosmic truths, the eternal cosmic truths that it communicates, and the deep and meaningful significance that it ought to have in the thought life and the worship life of every believer.

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So what we're going to see as we dig into this text today is this, that the coronation of Christ, this triumphant entry into Jerusalem, is an event that when rightly understood, speaks powerfully about who

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Jesus Christ is, and of how we are to relate to him.

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Through the lens of Mark's gospel, we're going to discover a new dimension of Christ's identity as the

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Son of God. And in actuality, if I'm going to compare it to King Charles' coronation, it speaks with the force of 10 ,000 coronations, 10 ,000 earthly coronations, and it shouts the kingship of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And we would do well to pay attention to this king and his kingdom.

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So let's tune in, as it were, to Christ's coronation. And we're going to look in Mark chapter 11, and as our brother has read already, we're going to split up the passage some, but I think we're going to keep the integrity of the whole.

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And so let's begin by reading verses 1 through 8. It says this, Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage and Bethany, at the

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Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.

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Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, Why are you doing this? Say, The Lord has need of it, and will send it back here immediately.

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And I'm going to pause there for a moment. We see that the disciples do exactly this, and they encounter exactly what

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Christ has prepared them for. And then in verse 7, it says this, And they brought the colt to Jesus, and they threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

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And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

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Now after reading this passage, an astute reader, maybe an astute reader with moderate skills and understanding of Messianic prophecy, is going to immediately recognize the rich truths that are being conveyed through this seemingly insignificant event.

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It's rich with symbolism. We're going to see that symbolism. It's rich with prophetic fulfillment, and it should become immediately apparent.

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This is not merely a prophet, or a miracle worker, or merely a good teacher riding into Jerusalem on his young colt.

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No, here we should note that everything in this passage is telling us, it is screaming to us, that here is

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Christ the Sovereign King. That's the first point that I want to make, is this passage shows us, it gives us a portrait of Christ as the

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Sovereign King of Israel. As the Sovereign King over all of his creation.

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As the Sovereign King of glory. Now many people miss this truth in their reading of the text, because they don't catch the subtle imagery and the prophetic significance.

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But Christ certainly did, and his disciples and onlookers to a lesser extent understood what was being communicated here, with Christ on the donkey, preparing to ride into Jerusalem.

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And so we're going to do what I really like to do, which is to put ourselves in the shoes of a first century

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Jew, and understand what it was that the Jews were expecting, and what it was that Christ was fulfilling.

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So we'll begin in verse 1. Here we're told that Christ entered Jerusalem, and that he passed through Bethpage, and then

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Bethany. And it would seem that he did it in that order. I always find it interesting that whenever we read about these geographical accounts in Scripture, there are always the critics that arise, and say, well that's not how that geography works.

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And many critics have arisen over time and said, right from the beginning of verse 1, that the order of the towns is wrong.

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That Christ should have gone to Bethany, and then Bethpage, through the Mount of Olives, and then to Jerusalem.

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But what I find wonderful, what I find interesting, it's always the case, and we shouldn't at all be surprised, that Scripture has again stood the test of time.

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And the scrutiny of critics, and new archaeological discoveries. As archaeologists have looked, as historians have read accounts of people like Josephus, what we're told, in fact, is that the modern road that many critics base their criticisms upon, was not the road that Christ would have used to get to Jerusalem.

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But in fact, there was an old Roman road that passed its way through Bethany, and then Bethpage, up the

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Mount of Olives, and then a person was able to go to Jerusalem from there. From Jericho, oh no,

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I already read that. And this location is rich with symbolic and prophetic meaning. This Mount of Olives.

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Mount of Olives stands some 300 feet above Jerusalem, to the east. And was separated from the

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Temple Mount by a deep valley that we know as the Kidron Valley. And if a person were to go to Israel today,

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I had the benefit one day, Frank Parker went to Israel and showed me the photos. I got to see photos that he had taken from the

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Mount of Olives, looking down into the valley and then over to where the Temple Mount would have been. A person can today go down from the

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Mount of Olives, pass through the Kidron Valley, and find a myriad of important landmarks there.

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One of which is the Garden of Gethsemane. And the Mount of Olives was frequently the subject of Old Testament prophecy.

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And I'm not going to list all of them, but I want to list one in particular. In Zechariah chapter 14,

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Zechariah prophesied that one day, Yahweh would enter into Jerusalem from the

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Mount of Olives. In Zechariah 14 .4, it says, On that day, His feet shall stand on the

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Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east. And the

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Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the

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Mount shall move northward and the other half southward. And for this reason, because of this particular text, rabbis in Christ's day associated the

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Mount of Olives with the coming of the Messiah. Now, I would suggest there is eschatological connotations to that passage.

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But in the mind of the Jew, that was where the Messiah was to come from. It would be from this mountain that the

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Messianic King of Israel would victoriously and triumphantly enter into the city.

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And verse 2 tells us that Christ instructed His disciples to fetch a colt for Him to ride into the city.

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And that word, colt, can be translated either to refer to a young horse or a donkey.

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But we can wager, I think, a fairly certain guess, based on the geography, that this was likely a donkey.

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There were donkeys around all the time. And Christ adds that it was to be a donkey that no one had ever ridden on before.

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And if anyone had any questions, they should say, the Lord has need of it. Now again, someone reading this might not see much significance in this account.

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But there's actually an enormous amount of symbolism just in these few words.

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Now kids, I don't know about you guys, what do you think of someone riding on a donkey?

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If you were to think that King Charles, on his coronation, instead of being pulled in a horse -drawn carriage, or riding in an old

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English car, if he came riding in on a donkey, what would you think? Would you think that would be an honorable way to enter into his coronation?

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No. By today's standards, it's not a particularly honorable mode of transportation.

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But, for the Jews, and for people in that context, the donkey was the transportation of choice for the kings.

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And we see that, actually, extra -biblically, certainly, but in Scripture as well. In Judges chapter 10 and verse 4, as an example.

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One of many examples in the life of the judge Jair. It says that he had 30 sons who rode on donkeys, and they each had 30 cities.

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And so Jair had his dignitary sons, all 30 of them. Each, you could say, mayors of cities, or stewards of cities.

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And their mode of transportation was the donkey. Now, not only that, but the Jewish Mishnah, which is a written account of Jewish oral tradition, taught that not only were kings to ride on horses and donkeys, but no one else could ride on that horse or donkey.

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It had to be, in the words of one commentator, an unbroken beast of burden. And so it had to be a horse or donkey specifically designated for that king.

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And we see that Christ includes that in his instructions. That he rides not only a colt, a donkey, a young horse, but also one that has never been ridden before, even in keeping with the cultural practices of the day.

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And all of this perfectly fulfills Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9, which prophesied about the coming of Israel's king.

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Mark doesn't mention it, but John and Matthew make the connection clear in their gospel account.

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In Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9, it reads like this. This is quoted by John and Matthew.

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Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

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Behold, your king is coming, righteous and having salvation as he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, on a foal of a donkey.

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This is actually significant that Christ should get on a donkey. If we remember

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Christ's ministry, he has walked almost the entire duration of his ministry. And when he's not walking, he's in a boat.

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But now here Christ comes to the Mount of Olives, the city that has been prophesied as the place where the

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Messiah, the king of Israel will come. And it's here that he chooses and calls to have a colt brought to him.

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He mounts on the colt and he prepares to enter into the city. For Christ to ride into Jerusalem on an unbroken colt, and that from the

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Mount of Olives is not merely a power play move, but it's a profound statement of eschatological importance.

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And then verse 8 affirms this, if we fast forward a bit. It says the crowd spread their cloaks on the ground, and all of the leafy branches that they could cut from the fields.

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Now what does this mean? To lay down their cloaks on the ground was an ancient practice to welcome a king.

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For instance, if we go back to the kings of Israel in 2

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Kings 9 verse 13, we read about the appointing or the anointing of King Jehu.

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And it says there that then in haste every man of them took his garment, put it under him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpets and proclaimed,

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Jehu is king. And to greet a king with palm branches was to recognize his royalty and to rejoice in the salvation that he brought.

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Now I just realized that I defaced one of my wife's household plants today, and I forgot the palm leaf at home, didn't

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I? So I cut a leaf off my wife's plant, and then

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I forgot it at home. So now I'm twice in trouble. But I was planning to show you a palm leaf, or a leaf that is very similar to a palm branch.

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And what would happen is when kings would come into town, like Jehu when he was anointed king, or like Christ in this case as he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, is that the people of the city would lay their garments down on the road for the donkey to walk across.

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And maybe if you didn't have a coat, or if you wanted to add to your garment that was already on the road, you would go and pluck branches and leaves from nearby areas and lay them on the road.

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And the whole idea was this, that it recognized that that king, not only was he royalty, and he was powerful, and he had authority, but he was coming with the power to save.

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It was a depiction of salvation. And it comes really from a three -fold area.

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I'm going to mention two at the moment, but it harkens back to the nation of Israel.

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When they left Egypt, and they lived in tabernacles in the wilderness for 40 years, it was

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God that had delivered them from the nation and had protected them underneath those tabernacles made of leaves and branches.

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But even in the modern Jews' mind at that time, there was an even more current event that it referenced.

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Palm branches were used to celebrate the Maccabean revolt and the victory over the

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Greeks the Jews had celebrated in 160 BC.

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The Jews were overthrown by the Maccabeans, which ushered in another period of, you could say, partial

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Jewish peace and prosperity. I don't frequently read from the Apocrypha, because I know it's not inspired, but it does record the history of that particular event.

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And so if you had a KJV Catholic Bible here, you could turn to 2 Maccabees 10, verse 7.

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It says, Now this certainly would have been fresh in the

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Jewish mind. And I want you to see this with me. This is a detail not to be glossed over in our

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Bibles. Every biblical reference to the practice of kings and monarchs in all of redemptive history looks forward to and points to this event.

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The reason why God inspired the documentation of Jehu's coronation with coats on the ground and the use of palm branches in the

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Feast of Tabernacles and the appointing of kings and the practice of judges was to show this, that here, riding into Jerusalem, is

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Christ the King. In the Gospel of Mark, we have seen

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Christ the prophet. We have seen Christ the priest. And now Mark's Gospel shows us

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Christ the King. Here we see the humble and yet triumphant Christ riding on his colt, coming to his people.

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And as the people lay their palm branches before him, bringing with him salvation from God, in such a scene, when rightly understood, to see

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Christ, our Savior, as all -sufficient King, ought to move us to throw down every garment of our own.

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If I had my palm branch, I could throw it down to submit to him as King and to surrender to his

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Lordship. This is what this passage is communicating. That Christ is

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Savior, yes. That Christ is Lord, yes. That Christ is merciful and gracious, yes.

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That Christ is the Great High Priest, yes. The long -awaited prophet, yes.

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But that Christ, brothers and sisters, is the sovereign and authoritative

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King of all creation. Christ does not just heal.

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He doesn't just teach. He doesn't just save, as wonderful and as important as that is.

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But Christ rules and reigns and conquers as King.

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Now, I think that everyone in this room, it's small enough today, I can say, I think everyone in this room would agree with that.

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Yes, Shane, Christ is King. I agree. But I fear that too many professing

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Christians fail to treat Christ as the King and the Lord that he is.

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For some, Christ is just a pastime. For others, he's the kind of friend that you only call when you need something.

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For others, he is the son who winks at your sin. He's the easygoing guy.

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For others still, his word is but a suggestion which can be taken or left on a whim.

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But dear ones, if we understand this text correctly, make no mistake about it, what

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Mark is showing us, and what we're going to see as we continue to unpack the passage, is that Christ is the great redemptive

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King of the ages. He comes not with the authority of a frail human king, but with the sovereign power of the divine.

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He comes not dressed in temporal and sin -stained apparel, but clothed in eternal righteousness.

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And his word is not a mere suggestion, but an authoritative decree.

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He is Lord, he is King, and he is God. But I agree with what

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A. W. Tozer once wrote. He said this, he said, The lordship of Jesus Christ is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to the hymnal, where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of religious emotion.

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We can sing about Christ as King, but do we submit to Christ as King? He said,

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Or if it is taught as a theory in the classroom, it is rarely applied to practical living.

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The idea that the man, Christ Jesus, has absolute, final authority over the whole church and over its members in every detail of their lives, is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical

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Christians. Is this your mindset? Is Christ the king of your hymnal?

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Or if you're a theologian, like we're learning some of the men are in the men of grace chat, if you're a theologian, is

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Christ the king of your theology? Or, dear brothers and sisters, is

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Christ the king of your life, and every facet of it, so that when you go to school, you submit to him as king and lord.

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And when you go to work, you work not as unto man as a people pleaser by way of eye service, but as to the king and as to your lord, and amongst your family, and amongst your friends, and amongst your neighbors.

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Do you do what he says you ought to do? And where he sends, do you go?

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I think, perhaps, Christianity is so weak in our modern Christian culture, because we have such a weak view of Christ.

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To quote from our brother, Vody Bauckham, he says, much of evangelicalism worships a sissified and needy

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Jesus. And I would suggest, maybe that's why many live sissified and needy lives.

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But Christ is king. And that's what this passage is telling us. John MacArthur says,

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Jesus is Lord. Consistently, Scripture affirms the lordship of Christ in every way.

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He is Lord over judgment. He is Lord over the Sabbath. He is Lord over all.

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This is an interesting detail to pay attention to. He is called Lord no less than 747 times in the

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New Testament. The book of Acts alone refers to him as Lord 92 times, while only

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Savior two times. He writes clearly in the early church, and in the early church's preaching, the lordship of Christ was at the heart of the

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Christian message. Is Christ your king?

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Or is he something else in your life? I think I've shared the story with at least a few of you, but I recounted an event where I believe it was

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John Owen was invited to be in the king's presence, the king of England.

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One of King Charles' great ancestors. While he was visiting with the king, they had dinner together, and they had some polite conversation after the meal.

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Then John Owen indicated, I must be leaving now. The king of England said, what could possibly be more important than a meeting with the king of England?

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He said, I need to retire, because I have a meeting with the high king of heaven tomorrow morning.

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Is that your king? If it is, how do we relate to him? I think that brings us to our second point that we read in verses 9 -11.

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Verses 9 -11 read like this, and those who went before and those who followed were shouting,

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Hosanna, children, prepare yourselves. I'm going to ask you what Hosanna means in a moment.

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Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father

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David. Hosanna in the highest. And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he looked around and did everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

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So we've seen here that Christ is the sovereign king. Now I want to show us that here we see a picture of Christ, the rightful object of all creation's praise.

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As Christ entered into Jerusalem, I'm happy,

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I'm glad that his coronation planners did not have to recruit reluctant singers and musicians to sing his praises.

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The crowds saw what was happening. They read the sign of the times, and they threw their cloaks on the ground, and they laid down a royal carpet of palm leaves, and they gathered all around.

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It says some went ahead and some went behind. But in unison they shouted,

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Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now kids, what does

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Hosanna mean? This is a tricky one. Or is there an adult that might be able to help the children?

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Not quite, but you're in the right direction. Hosanna. Hosanna means this.

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As Christ came riding on this humble colt, they cried out, Save now.

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Save us. That is Hosanna. Save us. Deliver us, we pray.

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And they quoted from Psalm 118, verses 25 and 26.

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And this was part, interestingly enough, of a Jewish liturgical designation that is referred to as the

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Hallel. It's an abbreviated form of Hallelujah. And what it meant was it was a song, or a group of songs in praise to God.

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And what the Jews would do in God's good providence is that at every Jewish festival, and especially at the

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Passover, they would sing Psalms 113 through 118.

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So here, leading up to the Passover, the Jews are singing this song. And I find it wonderful and interesting that the sovereign king decreed that this psalm would be written, and that here it is fulfilled, as the

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Jews sing it naturally. It was inspired in the first place for this triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem.

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The Jews had been singing it now for hundreds of years, but it was made, it was written for this moment.

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As Christ the king entered the royal city, the people rejoiced to see his face in his coming kingdom.

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And they were moved to worship, even if they didn't understand it fully. And our brother read the passage about the coming of the

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Davidic kingdom, the king that was to arise from the loins of David, the root of Jesse.

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And as Christ received their hosannas, and their praises, he refused to stop them.

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In fact, there were those who suggested that he should stop them. If we go to Luke chapter 19, in verses 39 and 40, this is,

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Mark doesn't record it, but Luke tells us that some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him,

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Teacher, rebuke your disciples. But Christ answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

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And just a little bit later, in Matthew chapter 1, in verse 16, when

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Christ was on the temple mount, we're told that the children themselves, kids, the children, worshipped

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Jesus on the temple mount. And they cried out after their parents, Hosanna, save us.

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Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And when the religious leaders rebuked

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Christ, he said, he quoted from Psalm chapter 8, he said, out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise.

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So here we have Christ the King, riding on his humble colt, taking the journey, the pathway of the

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Messiah into Jerusalem. And what is he met by but worshippers, worshippers of the one true

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God. And what does it all mean? Does this have any significance?

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Or is it just a narrative that we ought to read and then move forward by? What it means is that this praise and this adoration is absolutely necessary in light of who

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Jesus Christ is. Here is Christ the King. He is the rightful object of all of man's praise.

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And even the Pharisees, if even the Pharisees were to go around the crowd and shut the mouths of every man and woman and child in Jerusalem, all of creation would rise up and sing to the glory of Christ.

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Wouldn't that be amazing? If the Pharisees could just close the mouths of the people for a moment, even then the wind would roar.

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In Christ's words, the mountains would quake. Every stone would grow a mouth and lungs.

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I don't know how it would work, but every stone on the ground would worship Christ and cry out for his salvation.

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And this teaches us if we recognize Christ rightly as the sovereign King, the

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King of glory, this teaches us how we are to respond to Christ as King, brothers and sisters.

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Christ is the telos, the object and the ultimate aim of all of creation's praise.

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When you come on Sundays, let me ask you, do you come to worship Christ? We come to worship the

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Triune God, but do you come in your heart and say, I have come today to worship

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Christ? Because this passage teaches that Christ deserves our worship.

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He is owed all of our worship. He is owed all of creation's worship.

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Matthew Henry says this, Blessed is he that comes, so often promised, so long expected.

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He comes in the name of the Lord. Let him have our best affections.

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He is a blessed savior. He brings blessings to us and blessed be he that sent him.

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Praises be to our God who is in the highest heavens over all, blessed,

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God blessed, forever. When we rightly esteem Christ as King of glory, there is nothing left to do but to worship him.

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And what we will actually see if we were to do a study in Revelation next, if we go to Revelation chapter seven in verse nine, is that we see this same kind of worship happening in the cosmos.

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It says this, After I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the

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Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.

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And what are they doing? They are worshiping Christ, standing before the throne and before the

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Lamb, worshiping in spirit and in truth. And that is what

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God desires for all of us, but to be worshipers of Christ, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him, as our spiritual act of worship.

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In Hebrews chapter one in verse six, it says, Speaking of Christ, let all God's angels worship him.

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So is Christ your king? And is it resulting in a life of obedient praise and worship to him?

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Not just worship with your hymnal on Sunday, but worship every day with all of your life.

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I once heard a wonderful story that has stuck with me for at least ten years, about an encounter that happened between a few men, a few brothers in England, and an unknown man while they were doing street evangelism.

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And in this particular account, there were two men that were sharing the gospel with people,

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I believe it was on the streets of Manchester, England. And as they were speaking with different people, they got into a conversation with one man, and he said to them, and in the course of their conversation, he said,

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What if you are wrong? What if you're wrong? What if you believe in Christ, like the

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Bible says, and you place your faith in him, and you love him, and you serve him, and every single day you look to him, and then when you die, you go to hell.

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Because God says, you're not good enough for Christ. The one man looked at this individual, and he didn't quite know how to answer, and then the guy next to him, and this is why it's always good to do evangelism in pairs, the guy next to him chimed in and said,

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Then I will find the highest place in hell, and there I will fall down on my face and worship

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Christ from there. That is how good Christ is. And that is the kind of worship that he deserves.

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Now, theologically, I know that there is only going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell, but if it were possible,

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I want to live like that, that regardless of where the

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Lord puts me, I will worship him there. John Piper says,

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The aim of God's providence in the history of the world is worship flowing from the people of God.

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And then verse 11 hints at what's going to come next. Christ gets to Jerusalem, and he examines the temple.

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He has a look at the temple. Another fulfillment of prophecy. In Malachi chapter 3 and verse 1, it says,

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And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the

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Lord of hosts. And Christ has come to examine and to inspect his temple.

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This is his. How are things going? And that brings us to our final point.

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I'll give us the point, then we'll read the text. Here we see that not only is Christ the sovereign king, and not only is he the rightful object of all of creation's worship, but Christ is the

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Lord of the temple. He is the Lord of the temple, and you could say he is the temple of the

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Lord. Verse 15 reads like this. And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple.

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And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

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And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.

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And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

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And when evening came, they went out of the city. Here we see

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Christ the Lord of the temple. We're told that Christ visited the temple and then went back to Bethany.

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Now we know that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were in Bethany. Maybe he stayed at their house. Scripture doesn't tell us.

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But the following day, he went to the temple. And what we can gather, just to place us on the temple mount, if we were to map it out, is if we look in verse 17, he quotes from Isaiah 56, that God's house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.

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And what most Bible scholars and commentators will tell you is that where Christ was, based on that particular statement about including the

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Gentiles in the worship of God, is that Christ was in the court of the Gentiles. Now the court of the

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Gentiles was a massive area on the temple mount that was part of the temple compound.

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If you're into football, it was five football fields long and three and a quarter foot football fields wide.

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500 yards by 325 yards. Brother, if you're into agriculture, it was 35 acres.

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And so it would take some 20 minutes to walk around the outskirts of the court of the

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Gentiles. A massive open air court. And then surrounding the court, Josephus tells us that there were pillars.

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There were 30 feet tall that went up. And in order for a person to...

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A person could never wrap their arms around the pillar, but it would take three people holding hands to surround the pillar.

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And so here we've heard now for the last two weeks about Herod's marvelous engineering.

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Here was Herod's third temple in all of its glory. And what we see as we study this text and what commentators see, and I trust them to an extent, is that here we see a comparison between the temple, the earthly brick and mortar temple, compared with the majesty of Jesus Christ.

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That Christ himself said that there is one greater here, one who is greater than the temple.

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John 1 tells us that the word was with God and the word was

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God and that he dwelt among us and that he tabernacled among us. And so here we have the

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Lord of the temple, inspecting his temple. And you could say the temple of the Lord.

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And Christ goes into the temple. And what does he find? Well, we're told already that Christ was in the temple early in his ministry.

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In John 2, for example, in verses 14 to 16,

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Christ there drove people, the money changers and those who were selling goods out of the temple.

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Perhaps that was where Christ was around the time of his baptism, in Mark 1 and verse 9.

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We don't know. But what Christ finds as he inspects the temple is this. He finds money changers, people that are exchanging money.

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And the way it worked was this, that the Jews would not accept any kind of coins or currency that had the face of Caesar on it or of some other royalty.

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And so what they did was they had their own Jewish currency. And so all of the travelers, as they would come to Jerusalem for the

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Passover, would have to exchange their foreign money for this Jewish currency.

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Now that in and of itself is not wrong. But what was wrong was that the Jews and the people that ran these currency exchange places were charging somewhere around 10 to 12 % in fees to do the transaction.

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And so for every $100 that you would give in exchange for the

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Jewish currency, they would take $10 or $12 of that. It was a den of robbers.

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And then they sold pigeons and other sacrifices for the religious, the ceremonial laws and the religious sacrifices.

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And again, this was dibbied out by the religious authorities. And so the authorities would rent out stalls,

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I suppose, where they would pay fees to the authorities in order to sell these pigeons and other sacrificial offerings.

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And this is disdainful to Christ. He abhors it to the point that he drives them away.

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But as one commentator writes, not before teaching them. Christ is always teaching.

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He's always patient in his teaching. And one commentator says, even as God sent his prophets repeatedly through the

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Old Testament to warn his people of their sin and idolatry, Christ never stopped declaring

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God's will to a rebellious people, no matter how often they rejected it.

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The Jews believed that when the Messiah would come, he would purge the temple of all of the

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Gentiles. As a matter of fact, outside of the temple, they had a sign that said that if there were any

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Gentiles that entered into the temple proper, they would be put to death. And so, in this case, the

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Gentiles were treated with disdain. And the court of the Gentiles that was put there so that the

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Gentiles could themselves come and worship God was put to a different use, to rob people and to exclude people from the worship of God.

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Isaiah 56, verses 6 and 8, where Christ quotes from, I'm not going to read it all, but it says this, and the foreigners who join themselves to the

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Lord, to minister to him, so the foreigners, the Gentiles, the foreigners who join themselves to the

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Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the

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Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant, these

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I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

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Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.

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The temple was not to be a house where people prayed for all nations. The temple was to be a place where all the nations could come and draw near to the one true

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God. As the

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Lord of the temple, Christ's chief concern, what is it? It's not just that it is a den of robbers.

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It's not just that people are buying and selling for a profit and for fees, which he disdained,

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I believe. But his chief concern was that his people, not only in Israel, but in all nations, would be hindered from worshipping him.

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That they would not be able to come to him because their court was filled with knick -knacks and shops and everything else under the sun.

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It was Christ's desire to call all the nations to himself. It says that he might make them joyful in him.

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As Lord of the temple, Christ's desire is that people would worship him and that he would bring people to worship him.

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Deuteronomy 34, verse 43 says, Rejoice with him, O heavens! Bow down to him, all gods!

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I don't think I got that quote. I think I have the wrong reference there.

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But that's okay. I'll quote from 1 Peter 3. It says this, For Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, and being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

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Christ is sovereign king. Christ is worthy of all of our worship. And Christ is the

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Lord of the temple and is the temple of the living God, the tabernacle of God amongst us, desires that all of us would come and worship him and to know him and to walk with him and to draw near to him.

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It was in the temple that the sacrifices were offered and it was in Christ's body that the great and final sacrifice was offered to bring all people to himself.

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So, I'll conclude with this. Thomas Manton, I was reading

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Thomas Manton recently. He was a Puritan who lived in the 1600s. He was part of the

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Westminster Assembly that wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was the minister, one of the ministers, to Oliver Cromwell.

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And I was reading one of his word pictures. It was just a brief word picture about a prince who would die for a criminal.

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And it just brought this vivid image to my mind of what it was like that Christ should be king and that Christ should be concerned that we would draw near to him.

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And so I drafted this even as I was talking through it with my children. But imagine for a moment what it would be like if a young king went out for a walk on a bright sunny day, a day like today.

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And as he strolled under the clear blue skies with the glowing sun warming his face, he thought about all that was included in his vast domain.

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He considered that he was the owner of a thousand hillsides. He was the master of cities and fields, the lord of mountain ranges and rivers.

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And as this king made his way along the king's highway, one of his very own royal roads, he took comfort in having a clear conscience before God that he was a just king, an upright king, a righteous leader, universally celebrated by his people.

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Now imagine for a moment that this young king, as he cheerfully walked through his land, passed by the site of an execution where a criminal was to be put to death for violating one of his very own, the king's very own just decrees.

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A guilty prisoner, guilty of treason against the king who had been sentenced to reap that which he had sown.

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Now imagine for a moment what it would look like if that king should approach the gallows, pass by that prisoner's weeping family, his heartbroken wife, and his sobbing children, take pity on that wretched man and fully pardon him on the spot, but in order to ensure that his penalty was paid in full, and that he was granted a full pardon, and that his own just decree was satisfied, the king himself ascended the gallows, took the noose around his neck, and died for that man's crime.

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Such an action would scarcely be forgotten by that pardoned man and by his family and every person who heard the news of such an event.

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Now, Manton and a Puritan observer writes about this scenario. They say that the deed would ring through all history because of this amazing instance of heroic pity and well deserved would be the words of praise and sonnets of admiration which would recognize and eulogize it.

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Now the Puritan writes, Yes, our Lord did this and infinitely more for those who were not merely criminals but enemies to his throne and person.

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This is the wonder of wonders, but alas, it meets with small praise.

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The most of men around us have heard of it and treated it as an idle tale, and multitudes more regard it as a pious legend worthy to be repeated as a venerable fable and then forgotten as an unpractical myth.

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Even those who know, Christians, even those who know, believe, and admire are yet cold in their emotions with regard to the story of the cross.

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But they finish with these words, But here is love which ought to set our hearts on fire, ought to set our hearts on fire in worship of God, and yet we scarcely maintain a smoldering spark of enthusiasm.

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Here we have in this picture Christ. It's the final third of the Gospel of Mark.

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It's the last week of his life. He is the king. He is riding into Jerusalem on his donkey and, brothers and sisters, he's riding there for us so that he would go to that cross for you.

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And this passage teaches us how we are to relate to him. We are to submit to him as king.

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He cannot be savior and not lord, savior and not yet king. We are to submit to him.

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We are to, to use the Puritans' words, have our hearts set on fire in worship of him.

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And then we are to cling to his salvation, to look to him, trusting truly that he desires that we would come to him.

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In the temple he made a way so the Gentiles could be worshipers of the one true God. And in a cosmic sense on his cross he has made a way so that we can come to him.

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He desires that we come to him. Dear saints, let us go to him.