I'd like you, if you would, in your Bibles to turn to Matthew chapter 21 and particularly to verse 10 for my text this morning. Matthew 21 and verse 10, when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved saying, who is this? Now I want us to consider those words of the saying, who is this? Who is this? Now I was speaking to you on Tuesday and here this morning and again this evening and I'm actually taking three incidents from the life of our Lord and we're actually doing them in reverse order. We actually looked in the Bible study at the words of our Lord as he wept over Jerusalem. We're now moving back a little bit in the story to the time when he entered Jerusalem And tonight, God willing, I want to go back a little stage further back, but to give another view of some of these things which are relevant at this time of the year. We'll come to that tonight, God willing. But so you could say in terms of order, I'm doing it in the wrong order, but there we are. Sometimes the gospel writers choose particular order for recording things which are not necessarily chronological. So I think I have a perfect right to do this. I hope you don't mind doing it in this way. So we're going to look at this question this morning. Who is this? This was the question that the people asked. We're told that all the city was moved saying, who is this? Now this was a most remarkable event, of course, because our Lord Jesus Christ is entering into Jerusalem publicly. and openly and triumphantly. This was really quite different from the rest of his life thus far. He tended to keep quiet about what he was doing. He tended to say to people, do not spread this abroad. Now many of them did sadly and caused difficulties for him. But, generally speaking, he was more reserved, as it were, and in fact in John's Gospel, is it chapter 12, I think, we get that occasion when the Greeks come to see him and others come to see him, and there's almost some pressure for him to move, and he says that, my time has not yet come. Now, John records that a number of times, but particularly at that point, when there was great pressure, it wasn't long before these events that we have recorded here, but it still was not the right time. And we will see a little bit more about that, perhaps this evening, slightly. But this was quite, this was deliberate and it was public. He draws near to Jerusalem, our chapter begins, and he sent two of his disciples to go to the village and to find this cult, this young donkey, this cult, the foal of an ass, and bring it to him that he might ride into Jerusalem publicly and dramatically and cataclysmically as he begins this last journey to the cross, the climax of his coming into the world, the great event that was to be the climax, the culmination of the purposes of his coming, to die upon the cross and to rise again. Now this was not done in a corner. You remember that Paul when he is speaking to Festus and Agrippa, refers to this in Acts chapter 26 as he speaks of these things and verse 26 he says to this for the king before whom I also speak freely knows that these things and he's been speaking about the coming of the Lord Jesus and of his own conversion and he says knows that these things for I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention since this thing was not done in a corner And then he challenges Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. And Agrippa says, you almost persuade me to become a Christian. And Paul says, that's the very thing I desire. In fact, that all of you be like as I am, apart from the fact that I am in chains. These are well-known things. These are public things. And we read in this chapter that all the city was moved, it was known, it was clear, it was a witness, as was of course the cross itself. Because as the hymn reminds us, lifted up was he to die, it is finished was his cry. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so we are to look and live as we look to him. So who is this? Well, I want to suggest four matters, four main headings. I have a number of subheadings under each of my headings, but four matters concerning this one. Who is this one? Well, we can say firstly that he was a man of discipline, a man of discipline. Not only was he disciplined in his own life and testimony, but he knew what it was to discipline others and other things as well as other people. And we read in verse 7, they brought the ass, the colt, and put on them their clothes and they set him thereon. Now consider this, this is a colt, this is an animal that had not yet been ridden. It hadn't been broken in. Now if you know anything about horse riding, I don't know very much but I do know a little bit about it, then you have to train a colt, you have to break it in, but not when the Lord needs him. And there is no problem, there is nothing here when the Lord needs him, he has power to tame the colt and to control it. Now this incident follows the raising of Lazarus from the dead in John's Gospel. We'll be considering that tonight. The Lord Jesus Christ controls and disciplines the cult. But as we will see tonight, he controls and disciplines even death itself. He has power over life and death. Who is this? He is the controller of all creation. He is the one before whom all must bow. We see that illustrated in the scriptures so often and so frequently. Here with this coat upon whom nobody had ever sat. He does that as he stands up in the boat early in his ministry and commands the winds and the waves to be at peace. He does that as he comes to men and women with their sicknesses and their illnesses and with a word of command or with a touch of mercy he cleanses them or heals them. And even with death itself, the widow of Nain's son, Jairus' daughter, and Lazarus, where he disciplines and controls creation, and all mankind must eventually bow before him and be disciplined by him, either in grace or in judgment. And yet, what is happening here? He is riding forth to die, to die at the hands of sinful men. Amazing love, amazing sacrifice. He is a man of discipline. Secondly, he is a man who makes demands, a man who makes demands. Look at the words in verses 2 and 3. He says to his disciples, go over to the village against you. Straightway you shall find an ass tied and a coat with her. Loose them and bring them to me. If any man say unto you, you shall say, the Lord has need of him, of them. The Lord has need of them. There is no question. Here the Lord, we might say, requisitions the coat. Here is the demand of the Son of God. Here is Jesus, the Lord, Jehovah, the Messiah, the Master. He makes demands upon the owner of the coat, the foal of the ass. Who is this? He is the Lord who makes demands. Now my friends, God, the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ makes demands today. He demands man's affections. man's will, man's obedience, man's thoughts. He demands that we abandon ourselves and surrender to Him in repentance and faith. He demands that we surrender to His sovereign rights as King, Redeemer and Lord, to lay everything down for the sake of the Saviour of sinners. My friend, do you recognize the demands of the Lord Jesus Christ upon you? Will you acknowledge that you need Him as your Lord and Savior and Master? That unless you come to Him in repentance and faith, there is no hope for you. He is Lord of all. And if He is not Lord of all in your life, my friend, then He is not Lord at all. And you are in rebellion against Him and you come under His wrath and condemnation. Here is the Savior. Here is God the Son. He makes demands upon you today. No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven. And he says to us all, follow me. That is a demand. That is not an invitation, simply. It is not a good piece of advice. It is a command. It is a demand that requires a response. What is your response, my friend? to the charge and to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's demands demand a response, is our response, the response of the hymn writer in that wonderful hymn. Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Love, so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all. in the words of the old children's chorus that I learnt when I was a child. Some of you may know it. Maybe you, I don't know, I don't know whether you learnt these kinds of things. Some people say, well, you shouldn't teach children choruses well I don't know about that we were taught some choruses that were pretty theological and this one is a very I think a very fine one the Lord hath need of me his soldier I will be he gave himself my life to win and so I mean to follow him and serve him faithfully so although the fight to be fierce and long I'll carry on he makes me strong And then one day his face I'll see and oh the joy when he says to me, well done my faithful soldier. Can you say that? Here is one who makes demands upon us and he makes demands because he is the Lord of all. Who is this? He is a man of discipline. He is a man who makes demands. Thirdly, he is a man who is divine. A man who is divine. We see that in verse 3. The Lord has need of him. We see it in verse 5. Tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold thy king cometh unto thee. We see it in verse 9. The multitudes went before and said, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. You see those names? Lord. King, Son of David, Hosanna, Saviour. Now that is seen in two ways here, in two ways. Firstly, in his knowledge of events, verses 2 to 3. He sends his disciples to the village to find the cult. He'd never been there as far as we know. There are no secrets with God. He knows everything. He knew all about the cult. He knew all about the owner. He knew the question the owner would say. He knew that the owner would agree to the matter. You cannot hide anything from God, He knows everything. The Lord Jesus Christ is man, but He is God, and He knows everything, and He sees everything, and He understands everything, and you can never hide from His all-searching eye, His all-seeing eye. My friends, I still find that an incredible challenge. Never to do, or to say, or to think anything. that I would not want the Lord Jesus Christ to see or understand. He knows everything. He sees everything. He knows everything about us. He sees all there is to see. Now, I don't know about you, my friend, but if you are, well, if you're an anti-royalist, that might not apply, but if you, we live in a democracy with a king or a queen on the throne of the land, and I think if we were ushered into the presence of our queen or a king anywhere in the world, we would be careful what we said. We will be careful what we say. We will be careful what we sing. We will be careful what we do in their presence. There is a place for exuberance in our worship, but not for unrestrained carnality. And I think if we understand something of the holiness of God, then we keep a check on what we say and what we sing and what we do in His presence. We seek to do that which is honorable and which is glorifying. And I think that is only right. So we see that he is divine in his knowledge of events. Now we could fill that out in much greater detail. But let me move on. Secondly, and I have a number of points to make under this in a minute or two. But in the fact that he is the Lord the King. The fact that he is the Lord the King. This is the second thing about the fact that he is divine. He is the Lord the King. We will say a bit about his kingdom in a minute. What does he do as he comes into Jerusalem? Here he is riding on a colt, the foal of an ass, a donkey. He rides in triumph. Now you may say, perhaps that is unusual. Normally when a king rides, you would expect him to ride upon a horse, a powerful horse. In fact, the vision of the king that John has on the Isle of Patmos, in the book of Revelation, is of the Lord Jesus Christ God the Son coming, riding upon a mighty horse, a mighty steed, as the savior of the world, coming to conquering and to conquer. But this wasn't the first time this happened in the scriptures. If you go back into the Old Testament you find that David and the sons of David at times rode on mules as signs of their kingly power. Quite different from the nations around. This was something distinctively different. It was demonstrating that the authority that they had came from God They were not kings simply because they were the most important people in the country. They were not kings just because birth or otherwise had put them there. They were kings because God had put them there. And as a sign of their humility before God, they rode on mules. Now it didn't all do that, but certainly some of them did. And here is the Lord of glory. And he follows in that. He is great David's greater son. that he rides on a colt the foal of a donkey. Now you might say that's almost incongruous that he, God, the Son, Almighty God, the Creator of the world, should humble himself in this way. I think that's one of the reasons why Matthew tells us in verse 10 that this is why he humbled himself and the whole city was moved, verse 10. Why? Who is this, they said? They were looking for an earthly king who would rescue them from the Romans. They were looking for some political establishment. But here is one who comes riding in the spirit of David, King David, who comes as great David's greatest son, riding on a mule, riding on a donkey, riding on a colt. They were looking for an earthly kingdom, but here was a king and a kingdom that was so much greater than that. What kind of king was he? What kind of kingdom was that? Well, let me just give you a number of things. Let me give you five things about this kingdom, which I think are so significant under this second heading. So a man who is divine, point two, the fact that he is Lord the King, and now a sub-subheading, sorry about this. I know the Puritans did that, so I get away with it now and again. So here's a sub-subheading about the kingdom itself. What do we know about the kingdom? Well, we can say a number of things. And they're all actually negative. Here is the first. Here was a kingdom without taxation. Now, can you imagine that? Do you know any country in the world that doesn't have taxation? Well, of course, there's nowhere like that. Kings have to gain funds from somewhere. David had taxation. Solomon had taxation. Rehoboam, who followed his father, was a fool and increased the taxation and everybody rebelled. All the northern tribes rebelled against him. They need that, don't they? But here is a king who gives freely and wants no payment. Take His yoke upon you and learn of Me. You'll find that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He gives. He gives salvation. He gives of His grace. He is a God who is wonderful in His beneficence. Wonderful. Great. No taxation. It is without taxation. Secondly, it is without war. Now of course there is war against sin and the devil, but there's no civil unrest in this kingdom. There's no fighting within this kingdom. There are no military coups, there are no takeover bids. It's a kingdom of light. It's a kingdom of peace, it's a kingdom of harmony, it's a kingdom of blessing. Ah, there's war against evil and wickedness, there's fighting in this life to defeat the powers of darkness. But remember the words of the King, the Saviour Himself, if my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight. There's no fighting in this kingdom. And when we get to heaven, my friends, the kingdom of God will be established forever. And there will be no fighting, there will be no war. Wonderful. No taxation, no war. Thirdly, no cruelty. Our Lord rides on a colt, the foal of a donkey. How do you train a cult to take a ride? As I said earlier, it has to be broken in. But there's no breaking, there's no cruelty, there's no harshness. The Lord tames the cult and rides it into Jerusalem. That's amazing, that's not what normally would happen. This King is different. He is Lord of all creation. He is kind, He is gracious, He is full of compassion. He has plenty of hard words against sin and rebellion, and he is judge and acts in righteous anger against all unrighteousness, but in his kingdom there is peace. He is king of righteousness and peace. He is king of happiness and joy, unspeakable and full of glory. What an amazing kingdom this is, without taxation, without war, without cruelty. Fourthly, without sorrow. Now of course there were many sorrows and he was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief as he walked this earth. But he was bringing in a kingdom of righteousness and peace without sorrow. This was a kingdom of great joy. At His birth, the angels made the promise, Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. There is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, and in His kingdom every tear will be wiped away. That's one of the wonderful promises, isn't it, in the book of Revelation, saying that there in that eternal kingdom there will be no tears. no tears, without sorrow. Fifthly, this kingdom is without sin, without sin. This is why He came. This is why He came. He came to be the Saviour to rescue us from sin, to deal with our sin, to put us right with God, to take away all the guilt and punishment of our sin, to rescue mankind from the consequences of sin and rebellion against this God of all grace. He comes down to this earth to deal with our sin, to put an end to the power of sin. To cry on the cross those words of victory, not of defeat. It is finished. It is accomplished. It is done. To break the power of cancelled sin. To break the power of the devil. To crush his head. Remember the promise in what's called the Proto-Evangelium in Genesis. He will crush your foot, but you will crush his head. All right, the other way around. He will crush his head, you will crush his foot. Well, you can crush somebody's foot. Well, please don't do it. But I mean, if you crush somebody's foot, you're not going to kill them. But if you crush somebody's head, you're going to kill them. That's the end of it. That's the point of it. The devil is destroyed. His head is crushed, broken, to break the power of cancelled sin. Well, you say to me, what a negative kingdom. All these negatives. Without this, without this. My friends, it's gloriously positive. No taxes, no war, no cruelty, no sorrow, no sin. How wonderful. Who is this? The king who is divine. Fourthly, and finally, he is a man of destiny. No, yes, fourthly, finally, he is a man of destiny. Verse 11, the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. Now we can say three things about this, the man of destiny. Firstly, this was the fulfillment of prophecy. Verse 5, tell you the daughter of Zion, behold thy king cometh unto thee meek and sitting upon an ass and a coat, the foal of an ass. That was the prophecy that we read in Zechariah chapter 9 and verses 9 and 10. Now verse 9 is quoted. but verse 10 is the continuing part of the prophecy. Let me remind you of verse 10, not only verse 9, which is quoted here by Matthew, but in verse 10 he goes on to say, and I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall speak peace unto the heathen and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea and from the river, even to the ends of the earth." That prophecy was fulfilled, has been fulfilled so far in every detail. And the bits that are still left will be fulfilled in absolute detail, perfect detail. Matthew alone mentions both the donkey and the foal. Luke and John and Mark just mentioned the foal, but Matthew mentions the donkey and the foal, the ass and the foal, which is exactly what Zechariah prophesied. Now it's not that Luke and Mark and Luke and John are inaccurate, they're just not recording that. They're dealing just with the matter in hand, but Matthew specifically points out that both were involved. Every detail precisely, perfectly, just as prophesied by Zechariah all those hundreds of years earlier. God's Word is true. We were saying that to the children a little bit this morning. God's Word is true. God can be trusted. God's Word can be believed. Here is the fulfillment of prophecy. But secondly, not only was this part of his destiny, but it was his destiny, secondly. A man of destiny, his destiny. He came to die. This was the purpose of his coming. This was his destiny. He came to destroy death. And him that has the power of death, that is the devil. Now we read about that a number of times in the Scriptures, but two most remarkable references are given to us in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 2 and verses 14 and following. Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, That is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. For indeed he does not take on the nature of angels, but he does take on the nature of the seed of Abraham. That's the sense of the meaning in those words, how wonderful. Our God doesn't come down to save us by becoming an angel and visiting this earth and giving some message. He comes, becomes and He takes on the nature, our nature and our identity. He becomes one of us, fully and completely, fully human. In fact, probably more human than any of us are. because he was perfectly human, perfect God and perfect man, so that he is able to be, therefore, says Hebrews, he is able to be a merciful and faithful high priest and make propitiation for the sins of the people. For he himself has suffered being tempted, is able to succor those who are tempted. That's what he came to do. And only he could do it because he was both God and man. Perfect God, perfect man. No wonder there is great joy when this gospel comes. Forgiveness, full and free. His destiny to die, to save sinners. Through the cross comes glory. As Paul said, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ my God. That was his destiny, that is his destiny. His final destiny, we might say final, final in the sense of this sinful world, is to come again in glory and power and finish the work which he began at the cross as he takes his people to be with himself. A man of destiny in the fulfillment of prophecy, in his destiny. But thirdly, in your destiny, my friends, your destiny. Men of destiny, women of destiny. Are you a saved man, a saved woman? I trust many of you are. Probably most of you are. A great destiny awaits you. Either far better or far worse. And as you embrace the King of Kings, and only as you embrace the King of Kings, and only as you welcome Him as your Lord and Saviour, will you know that better and greater and glorious destiny. And this One who came at the first is coming again. Sure and certain. Absolutely certain. The Bible makes that clear. Thessalonians makes that clear. The book of Revelation makes that clear. The prophecies of the Old Testament make that clear. As he came at the first, so he will come again. The man of destiny, the Lord from heaven, he will come and he will come to fulfill your destiny, my friend. Either with him in glory or to be cast out for him forever. Have you asked this question? I trust many of you have, bless you. Who is this? And you know the answer. But your answer to this question and how you respond to it determines your eternal destiny. That's a very solemn matter, isn't it? Make sure you understand and you appreciate the wonders of this truth. May the Lord God himself be indeed your destiny as you find him as your savior and as your Lord. May God bless you this morning. Now we're going to conclude this service with the hymn, Here is Love, Vast is the Ocean, 1043 in the supplement 1043. Here is Love, Vast is the Ocean, loving kindness. Let's sing these words, thank you, or reflect on them.