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Pastor David Mitchell
All right. Well, let's get started a little bit early today. If we have visitors come, we'll be through by the time they get here. Let's turn to Luke chapter 19. You might believe that if Otis was teaching, but with me, we'd probably still be going.
So, no, I've tried not to go too long. Let's see. I believe we were, it's been two weeks, but I believe we were in Luke 19, and we would start about verse 28. And I hope that's where we were because, well, very good.
Very good. So, we're Luke 19, 28. It's always nice when I have prepared the right part. Okay. That's where I thought we were. Well, let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, we thank you for our time together so far today and the way that you speak to our hearts by your word.
You allow us to be encouraged by the faith of one another and seeing Jesus Christ in the eyes and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters. What a wonderful gift you've given us and the fellowship that we can have.
And we thank you for the food that we had and that we don't take for granted your provision. And we thank you for this time. And we ask you to teach us from your word as you did this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.
Okay. Luke 19, starting with verse 28. Now, the key phrase that I'm looking for I think today that interests me the most anyway out of this passage is gonna be all the way down in verse 42. So, just follow along with me.
I'm gonna read that direction. And we may stop a couple of times, but that's where I'm headed. And when he had thus spoken, he went before ascending up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany at the mount called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples saying, go ye into the village over against you in the which at your entering you shall find a cold tide whereon you never, never a man set, loose him and bring him hither.
And if any man ask you, why do you loose him? Thus shall you say unto him because the Lord hath need of him. Now, do you think at this point in the life and ministry of Jesus that he had any hesitancy to receive worship from men or to call himself the Lord?
It seemed quite natural, didn't it? At this point. Now, turn, hold your hand there and turn back to the book of Zechariah. Chapter nine, verse nine. Now this written almost 500 years before the birth of Jesus.
And look what it says. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, the king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation. He is lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.
Now, the Jews did not think of Jesus as, I mean, let me rephrase this. They did not think of their coming Messiah as lowly. They thought of him as a king and that's who they were looking for. But God had revealed to them in certain places, such as Isaiah chapter 53, and this verse in the book of Zechariah, the suffering servant aspect of the Messiah.
But they chose not to look at that. They chose to put it out of their minds. And even the apostles themselves weren't as familiar with those passages as they might've been. Because they even argued among themselves, who will be at his right hand when he sets up his throne?
I mean, that's what they were into. They were not into this suffering servant, this lowly aspect of Jesus. But he is fulfilling that very scripture some 500 years earlier is being fulfilled right before our eyes at this particular passage.
And so they obeyed him and verse 32, they went and sent, went their way and found even as he had said unto them. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto him, why are you loosing my colt?
Can't you imagine? I mean, it's like they're stealing their colt. And he said, why are you taking my colt? And they just said, well, simply the Lord has need of him. And he said, oh, well, okay. Now that's not normal, is it?
And we read over passage like this very quickly, but this is amazing. It's miraculous. And so the Lord prepared this colt that had been spoken of by the prophet 500 years earlier, and it didn't belong to the apostle, didn't belong to Jesus.
It belonged to someone else who simply said, okay, take the colt if it's for the Lord. That is amazing. Shouldn't be amazing when we think about the sovereignty of God and how he works in every detail, every blade of grass that blows.
So, uh, let's see verse 35 and they brought him to Jesus and they cast their garments upon the colt and they set Jesus there on. And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way. And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.
Saying, blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. This is almost word for word what the prophet Zechariah had prophesied 500 years earlier. It is word for word.
And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto Jesus, master, rebuke your disciples. Why were they saying that? What did they want them to be rebuked for? Who can tell me? I have to let you participate a little after that fried chicken.
You can tell me why they wanted them to be rebuked. There you go. And Lord. And the Pharisees were very sensitive to the fact that Jesus was claiming to be God. The I am. They knew very clearly that some of them were there the day that he said, you shall die in your sins.
For if you not that I am, you shall die in your sins. Whoa. Nowadays people say, well, Jesus never claimed to be God in the Bible anywhere. Show me where he ever claimed. Well, the Jews picked up the stones for some reason.
They were aware of what his claims were. And here they wanted him to rebuke his disciples because they were worshiping him and praising him. He's making himself out to be God. Your people are making you out to be God.
Stop them. That's blasphemy. And here it's beginning as his triumphal entry, the high point. If you want to look at it, humanly speaking, I'm sure his apostles looked at this as the high point in his career.
The seeds are already sown for his crucifixion because the Pharisees are hating it. They're hating every second of this and they're reporting it back and word is traveling here. He's claiming to be God and he will not rebuke his own disciples.
Now look at this answer. They said, you master rebuke your disciples. Look at verse 40. Can you imagine his face turning to them and those piercing eyes? And he turns to them probably in somewhat a gentle voice, but a voice that's authoritative nevertheless.
And he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones immediately would cry out. What do you think? They took off running probably. Don't you imagine? Imagine if you were the Pharisee, praise me to God that you weren't because Jesus said your sons of the devil.
They were children of Satan seed. They were the seed of Satan. But imagine if the man said that to you, you know, if I, if I, yeah, if I rebuke them, then these stones will cry out and praise me. Man.
Well, if you were in that crowd today, you would do the same thing you would today. One of two things, love him or hate him. Your decision is forced upon you when you face Jesus. And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it.
Now here's where we get into this part that interests me. And I know we're all different. You read through here and you, some different verse would pop out and you'd say, Oh, I've got to study this. But this section that we're coming into demands some thought and some questions.
And he answered and said to them, wait, we did that one verse 41. And when he was come near, he beheld the city and he wept over it saying, if thou hadst known. Now notice the word, if, if thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.
Now we're not going to get much further than this verse. I can tell because look, what is in this verse. First of all, if thou had known is very fascinating. When you consider the fact that Jesus is both man and God, it presents the possibility of other possibilities.
Or at least the fact that God knows not only the truth of destiny, but he knows all possibilities of every possible destiny there ever was. Now, I don't claim to say that the father would think this way because the father doesn't think.
Does he? God, you can't think of God as thinking because he just knows. However, as he extends himself into time and space into this planet and comes down into time in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of a sudden he acts as in time.
So all of a sudden there are possibilities of other possibilities in the mind of Jesus Christ. I don't have time this afternoon, but I could prove that by reading Luke 13, 34 and following and Matthew 13, 11.
If you want to jot those down, Mark chapter four, verse 11, many verses where he talks about, if you had done this, you know, if Sodom had seen the work you saw, it would exist today, he said. They would have repented and it would still exist today.
Those are interesting passages when you consider the fact that this is the son of God talking about possibilities of other possible renditions of history. And yet from the father's viewpoint, there's only one because he's already been there.
He's there now. He's the, I am. So if thou hadst known, now let's look at another phrase here. If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace. Now that shows a positional possession that God's people already positionally possessed something, which we know to be the kingdom.
And yet they positionally possessed it, but they were placed in a position by the father who is sovereign so that it was hid from their eyes and they didn't know they possessed it because had they known it, there would have been no cross.
They would have set the kingdom up right here. He's entering, he's entering the city that he's going to rule right now. They are proclaiming him as king right now. They're willing to follow him right now.
And yet Satan's seed. Now this brings in the idea that even Satan is a tool in God's hand. Satan does nothing that the sovereign God of the universe does not command. So we see a use of Satan right here.
Satan's seed was introduced into the world. We know at the time of Cain that that happened for the first time. And then there's a whole line of spiritual, spiritual Satan's seed. And here we see it in the, in the audience.
We won't call it an audience. Let's call it a crowd that develops as he enters the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and yet scattered throughout that crowd are satanically run, satanically motivated, satanically possessed people who will never be saved, who can never be saved.
Jesus looked them in the eye and said, where I go, you cannot come before you are of your father, the devil. They cannot go. And they're scattered in that crowd. And the sovereign God of the universe has them there.
And what is their purpose? Their purpose is to hate this one whose followers are proclaiming him to be king. And they lead to his eventual crucifixion, which was God's will. It was not God's will that the kingdom be set up at this time.
And so Jesus, knowing all this, can you imagine the man, Jesus Christ, the God man, but let's think of him as the human part, the human Jesus Christ, who's made aware of this knowledge by the Holy Spirit in fullness.
He has the Holy Spirit without measure. He knows the mind of God. And I believe he operated mostly in that mode when he was on this earth as a man, totally in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, without measure.
And he knows this information, but the people around him don't know it. And he knows that too. Now you're in that position in some way. You can look around you yourselves in the city, little city of Corsicana.
We can expand that on out into the whole world, all the way to India. And we can see people all around us who simply have eyes that cannot see. Now we know that some of them are lost sheep and their eyes will be open, but some of them are lost goats and they'll never see because they were not designed to see because they're not of the father.
They're not his children. They're Satan's children put here for a purpose to be used as a tool to make us be who we're supposed to be when we meet God and all that. So they're mixed in together. We can't tell the difference all the time like Jesus could.
So we give the gospel to them knowing that the sheep will hear the voice and come. But isn't this a remarkable thing? If you had known the things that really already belong to you, but now they're hidden from you for a season for the day shall come upon thee and thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee.
He's talking, he's looking out only 70 years into the future, not even that long, maybe 40 years, 40 or 50 years into the future when the Roman legions would come and literally annihilate this city and its temple and the religion of Judaism and the children and the old ladies and the old men and they will all be totally destroyed.
Jesus already sees this and that's why he was weeping at the beginning of this passage. So he shows us the heart we should have. We know not everybody's going to be saved, but it still should not keep us from weeping about it.
We know there are some out there lost right now who will be saved. But if we lose the tears, then we lose the zeal to give the message that we're supposed to be giving to everyone. And when he was come nigh, he was held the city.
He tells them the day shall come upon thee that your enemies will cast a trench about thee, encompass thee round and keep thee in on every side, exactly how it happened. If you read the story of Titus and the Roman legions, they encompassed the city and besieged it and shall let it got so bad that the people were eating their own children.
If you can even imagine that. And shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee. Leveled your city and going to level the people in thee and they shall not leave in the one stone upon another because thou knowest not the time of thy, thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
Now let's stop there, but let's think about this a minute. What is the word because mean? Okay. Because it said that this city will be leveled and the children within the city because you did not know the time of your visitation.
Who did the responsibility fall upon for the destruction of that city? The sovereign God? Did it say the city shall fall and the children within because God's going to make it happen? Or did it say because you didn't see the visitation?
You were not aware that your Messiah is right here. And since you miss that, you're going to be destroyed. So where's the responsibility on God or man? Man. That is exactly the way it will be in the judgment day.
There won't be one person that stands before the Lord at the great white throne judgment who says, well, I wouldn't be here if you'd elected me. I mean, if you had elected me and chose me, like you did this guy over here, brother Otis, and I'd be with him in heaven.
It's your fault, not one. There won't be one person. Now you might ask yourselves as thinking people, how can that be? Would it not have crossed their mind? If we understood everything about this doctrine of election and the doctrine of responsibility and how they fit together, if we understood all that, then we can understand why it is that they will never question it.
But they won't because they will know with all of their being that it's their own fault, not God's fault that they went to hell. Now, how do you explain that in the light of the fact that God knows whose children are and that only his children can go to heaven?
You can't totally explain it, but it's there. It's all right in the same verse we just read. The sovereignty of God meets the responsibility of man in many places in the Bible. Most verses that speak of one will have the other in the same verse, and this place is one of those.
Here we see that God has ordained before the foundation of the world that Jesus is going to go on the cross, not going to be set up as the king that day. He has also ordained who his children are. He doesn't have to ordain it.
He knows them. They're part of him. They're just his family. You see, God doesn't save people because they do good things. He saves them because they're his children and were before they were lost. Reconciled has a little prefix, R-E, rec, in front of it.
You know, God knew you before you were lost, and then you were lost, and then he comes and he saves you back. Bad grammar, but that's pretty good doctrine. And so God knows all that, and even in the light of all that, yet the world stands before him perfectly responsible.
Every single man, woman, boy, and girl that ever hits this planet has the opportunity to know God. They know about him. They know exists by looking around creation. They can look at science to see that.
They can know about him more if they hear this word preached, or any part of it, or even a sentence from it. You said you heard some things on the radio. There are very few people in the world today left that can't hear something somewhere.
It's all there, and man is going to stand fully responsible, and when the final because happens, and they're cast into the lake of fire, it's going to be because you didn't receive my son Jesus. You rejected him.
You hated him, and no one's going to come back and say, no, it's because you didn't choose me. That's not where the because goes. Strange phenomenon. We can't understand it all because we're not in the same dimension God's in.
He's much higher dimension than we are. At least he told us about it, so we can contemplate it, but when you watch Jesus come into that place that day, a lot of things were going on right there. Jesus is foreseeing the whole situation.
He sees the lost. He sees the sheep. He sees the disciples wanting to be king right now, so they can sit by him, but he knows God's plan, and he even sees Satan's seed in the crowd. He says, rebuke them, and he says, well, I would, but if I did, these rocks would shout out and worship me, and he knew right there he set in motion the cross.
It could not be stopped anyway, but even from the human viewpoint, at that point, it was set in motion. Long before that, it really was. They hated him, and they were going to crucify him. All God's plan, and yet the city falls down, and the children die because they didn't understand who was in their presence that day.
So let's not be caught that way. He is coming again. He is coming again. There are many events that surround that, and Jesus, one of the main things he taught before he left this world was don't be asleep.
Be ready. Be ready when I come. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this beautiful passage, for allowing us to walk down that road with that crowd today, and to see some of the things that happened.
We thank you that we can see both your sovereign hand, and we take comfort and peace in that, but we also see the responsibility of the men around us, and of our own selves, and Lord, may we stand ready at all times.
We thank you for the blood of Jesus. We thank you for your word, which cleanses us as water would cleanse our feet. We thank you, Lord, that you keep us in a right relationship with you. When we stray, you would chasten us, and when we're with you, you give us great peace, and so let us leave this place with that peace and joy today, and we ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.