For our scripture reading earlier tonight, we read all of Zechariah 9. But the verse I want to draw your attention to, really three verses, is 9-11. It says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is He. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the full of a donkey. And then there's a description of God eliminating the enemies of Israel, cutting off the chariot from Ephraim, the war horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow will be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule will be from sea to sea, from river to the ends of the earth. As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I'll set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. This is a prophecy of deliverance. Now, this is a post-exilic prophecy, which means, if you recall the narrative of Israel, the story of Israel, they were led out of captivity in Egypt. They were led into the promised land, into Israel, where they were ruled by judges for 400 years. Then they had Saul as their king, appointed by Samuel, who was followed by David. And that started the Davidic monarchy. David reigned in Jerusalem. He conquered Jerusalem. David, followed by Solomon, followed by Rehoboam, followed by the lines of kings from Judah. They reigned in Jerusalem for 400 years. In Israel, there was civil war after Solomon died and ten tribes broke off. They reigned from Samaria for a couple hundred years. So Jerusalem and Judah lasted longer by a couple hundred years than Israel and Samaria. Israel and Samaria went off into captivity into Assyria and they eventually just disappeared. The Assyrian army integrated the Jewish exiles. They just had them assimilate into the culture, eliminated their language. They intermarried and the culture was just subsumed and never to be seen from again. Very different than Babylon. Babylon took the Israelites, I mean the tribe of Judah and Benjamin into captivity. To Babylon, that's Daniel. They were allowed to keep their Jewish identity there. That's part of the book of Daniel. Esther shows you their identity was in hiding, yet they were still known as the Jews. They were distinct culture. And of course, it was the Persian king that let them come back and rebuild Jerusalem from the line of David, the tribe of Judah, rebuilding in Jerusalem. That end of the exile there, they spent 70 years in exile in Persia and Babylon. The end of that exile is when Zechariah was written. So this prophecy is looking forward from that time. And it's a prophecy through all of Zechariah chapter nine of a future war that's coming to Israel. The nations will rise up. Greece is named here by name. Most commentators agree. This is speaking of Alexander the Great, who's going to come and destroy Jerusalem again and triumph over Israel, make it his own domain, which is what happens. And then he's overthrown by the Romans. They're going to be destroyed again, Jesus says, in his own lifetime. So Zechariah 9 is looking forward. Remember, it's backwards to us now because this already happened. But it's looking forward to Alexander the Great and then beyond Alexander the Great. to the Lord Jesus. And when that happens, when there is war against Israel, this ultimately is prefiguring the war at the end of the tribulation, but it's prefiguring all that. When that happens in the middle of that war, in the middle of that conflict, remember we read it earlier, the conflict from Ashkelon in verse five, the Gaza Strip in verse five, All of that, the Philistines where they lived, which is all along the Mediterranean coast there. When all that happens, it's at that moment that their king will come to them. and their king is described in verses nine through 12. I want to give you an outline of that description because that really sets you up to understand what's happening when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the donkey. So your outline tonight, and this is from Zechariah seven surprising truths about the Messiah. These truths are drawn from those three verses, verses nine, 10, and 11, but most of them are in verse nine. Israel is supposed to rejoice greatly. And that's odd because they're surrounded by their enemies. They're being defeated. They're being really attacked and plundered. They don't have their own king. They're subservient to the Persians and even the Persians are under attacks. There is nobody left to defend them. It's in that moment where they're supposed to rejoice and they're supposed to shout loudly. Oh, daughter of Jerusalem is letting you know it's the offspring, the line of David that is there. And they're supposed to shout loudly because behold, your king is coming to you. This is messianic language. Messianic language, Messiah is the word in your outline. That's just the title that the book of Zechariah often uses to prefigure the Savior who is coming. This chapter, Zechariah gives you a lot of description of him, but this chapter right here, verses 9, 10, 11, give you seven truths. And the first one that you see right there is that he's a king. This Messiah, the savior person elsewhere in Zechariah, he's called the branch, which is the line that comes from the root of David, the stump of Jesse. He's a branch. Here he's just named as the king. Now Israel was the 10 tribes. They had all kinds of people as kings, but Judah, they could only have people as king who were from the line of David. This was the Davidic king. So working back, I know we're going backwards here from Jesus, you know, and the donkey to Zechariah, and even backwards from there, back to David. In 2 Samuel 7, David was their king. David asked God, can I build a temple for you? God told David, no, you cannot build a temple for me. This is before Solomon, before the big temple in Jerusalem. And God tells David, you cannot build a temple because you're a man of bloodshed. You've killed way too many people. You cannot build a temple for me. And that wasn't meant as a rebuke to David. I mean, he was expected to kill that many people. He was their conquering king. But God tells David, you cannot build a temple. Somebody after you will build it. But then he gives David what's behind door number two. You don't get door number one, building the temple. No, David. Door number two though, Your descendants will be king and the Messiah will be from your line. That's 2 Samuel 7, that the Messiah will be from the line of David. Well, in exile, there's no king anymore. They're back from exile. There's no king. They don't have a king. They're ruled by the Persians. They do not have a king. Do you remember one time they tried to rebuild the temple and there was riots in the streets. Could you imagine what happened if they made themselves a king? It would have been crazy. It would have been chaos. So they don't have a king. They don't have a throne for the king to reign on. They don't have a line of David anymore. They don't know who's from David's line anymore. Like it's all hope is lost. And then Zechariah 9 comes along and says, no, don't lament. Don't worry. Dry your tears. Your king is still future. Your king. You may have lost track of the line of David, but the Lord hasn't and your king will come. Don't sweat it. The king will come. So this is a passage to us. We just read, your king is coming in a donkey. Okay, that's odd. But for the Jews, the amazing part of this passage isn't the donkey yet. For the Jews, the amazing part of this passage is that the king is still coming. Yay. The king is on his way. That king, of course, will build the temple. That's prophesied in Zechariah 6. That king who's coming will be the one who rebuilds the temple from Zechariah 6. But now in Zechariah 9, it's just a reminder. that the king is coming. It's the line of David who will rebuild the temple and he will reign as king. The second truth about the Savior from this passage is that he's righteous. He's coming to you, it says in verse 9, but the next word is righteous. Righteousness, of course, is an attribute of God. Righteousness is not something that you earn. Contra the Roman Catholic Church, there's no treasury of righteousness that you can draw upon. Righteousness is a moral attribute of God. God is righteous. All that he possesses is righteous by God's own nature. God's conduct is righteous. He's the definition of righteous. Something is righteous if it corresponds to God's nature. We understand going back to the very beginning that people are righteous by conversion and placing their faith in God. They're declared to be righteous through faith. Abram believed God and that was credited to him or imputed to him as righteousness. In other words, righteousness does not come to the one who works or the one who labors, but rather to the one who has faith and who calls on God. So righteousness is a gift from God. that's given to you. This king has righteousness by his own right. Your king is coming to you and he is righteous. It's just one word in the Hebrew. It's just, see, there's not even a verb to it. Your king is coming to you. The way the ESV translates it is great. Your king is coming to you righteous. You know, that's the only word there. It's not a Californian thing. You know, Californians end sentences that way, righteous. Not that way. He is righteous by his own identity. He is the king of righteousness. He doesn't need an intercessor. People needed an intercessor before God because we're not righteous. This king doesn't. He is righteous by his own definition. There's hints of Melchizedek in this. Remember Melchizedek was the king of Salem, the king of righteousness. Salem being the word for peace. Melchizedek, Melech being king, Zadok being righteousness. Melchizedek was the king of righteousness and the prince of peace. Melchizedek was a king and a priest. We learned that from Psalm 110, he was a king and a priest. So there's hints of that here, that this guy's gonna be a king and he is righteous. He is Melchizedek in that sense. He is the king of righteousness. That's foreshadowing Jesus, who will be from the line of David, but he will be the type of priest prefigured by Melchizedek. Again, Zechariah I don't think would understand how all that fits together. He hadn't read the book of Hebrews yet, but he's writing the forward to the book of Hebrews with this kind of language. The king is coming and he's righteous. Thirdly, the king will be a savior. That's the rest of verse nine. Having salvation is he, and the ESV just keeps the Hebrew word order there. Having salvation, the verb is possessing, salvation is he. There you go, the ESV just kind of provides the is he at the end. He's righteous and he's having salvation. He doesn't need a savior. He has the capacity to save. by his own nature, having salvation. You call 911 because you need somebody to come rescue you. You need help to be brought to you. This king is the one that you call. When you pray to God, you're praying to God for help or rescue or deliverance or for your request to be made known to God and God hears them and answers them. This king is the one who's hearing your prayers and answering to them. He is the one who has salvation. That's his own identity. Having salvation is he. Now, It's kind of a question that's too obvious to even ask, but who or whom is this king saving them from? Well, in the context, it's the enemies of the nations, the enemies that are attacking. But when you zoom out in Zechariah, who sent those nations to attack? Well, God did. So this is a king who is righteous, but he's saving Israel from the very enemies that God himself is sending. And this is classic Yahweh. This is the way God often works. He sends enemies so he can save you from those enemies. He is then celebrated as the sovereign over your difficulty. You see this already prefigured in the book of Job, don't you? Where, you know, who sent the devil to Job? God did. And at the end of the book, Job is driven to the God in prayer for relief from the devil. God is doubly magnified. He's magnified as the one who's sovereign over the devil, and he's magnified as the one who delivers Job from him. He's doubly magnified here. He sends the nations against Israel, and then he sends the king who will deliver Israel from those very enemies that he sent. This king is the Savior, is the Messiah. Number four, this king is humble. He's humble. And that's the first word where you're like, hello, humble. I'm looking for a military leader who will bail me out as Alexander the Great is attacking. Humble is not in the job description. Maybe somebody who can like kill his 10,000 soldiers. That would be in the job description. Someone who can string a bow and shoot it with precision. That's in the job description. Humble, I don't think so. I mean, even in our own world today, is running for a politician or whatever, humility is not the kind of attribute you need in a politician. Humility is not the kind of attribute you need in a military leader, that's for sure. And yet this king will be marked by his humility. That's a shocking thing to see in this description. Now there is Old Testament precedent to this. This isn't out of nowhere. You think of 2 Chronicles 7. which is the prayer at the temple dedication, where God says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, then I will hear their prayer and deliver them from the hand of their enemy. That's at the temple dedication. If the time comes when Israel is taken into captivity, they're to humble themselves and God will deliver them, 2 Chronicles 7. And yet Israel doesn't do that, of course, right? They're taken into captivity. They don't humble themselves. The closest you get is like Ezra weeping and pulling out his beard. Ezra humbled himself. Other people don't humble themselves. And so here you're starting to see how this is answered. The king is going to come as the people's representative. And he will come not only humbling himself, but being humble. He is righteous. He possesses salvation. He is humble. You understand retrospectively here from Philippians how this looks. Jesus humbles himself coming from heaven to earth, takes on the form of a bondservant, a slave, becomes obedient all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's the humility of Christ. Jesus had the humility to wash the feet of the disciples. He had the humility to have children play with him. He was marked by his humility. He's the Lord of the universe, but he's marked by humility that is prophesied in Zechariah. Zechariah knows he's the righteous king, knows he's the Messiah, knows he's the deliverer, but also knows that he will be marked by humility. Number five, and this is the one we're all waiting for. He's on a donkey. Well, that's odd. He's on a donkey. Zechariah, if you've read Zechariah, things move fast in Zechariah. Like we're pushing through. There's some symbolism, apocalyptic imagery in Zechariah, but things are moving fast in Zechariah. And yeah, he kind of pulls the car over here with the donkey. Like we got the word king in one word. We got righteous in one word. Salvation, it's two words in Hebrew, three here in the, or four here in the English. But then the humble is one word in the Hebrew. And then mounted on a donkey, on a cold, the donkey gets two lines. And I remember reading and preaching through Mark. This struck me in Mark also. Mark, everything moves fast in the Gospel of Mark. Mark is bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And then you get to the donkey in the Gospel of Mark and the donkey gets like two paragraphs. Like what's the deal with the donkey out of nowhere? Everybody's a donkey expert here. It's prefigured here. The king is coming humble, mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. There's a very specific and particular description of him. Now commentators say all kinds of things like sometimes conquering kings would ride their donkey or their colt if they were victorious and they'd ride their war horse out to battle on the donkey. I have no idea what's true and what's not true. But it seems like the donkey being ridden is a mark of his humility. It seems low. It's not a normal thing. from my reading of the Old Testament and from the Gospels. It doesn't seem like a normal or expected thing that the king would go riding on. And yet Jesus is connected to his humility, comes in mounted on a donkey, on the colt, on a foal of a donkey. We'll get more about the donkey. I know I'll want more data on the donkey. We'll come back to him later. Number six, this king, not only will he be humble on a donkey, number six, he'll bring in global peace. From the back of the donkey, global peace. He's going to cut off the chariot from Ephraim. And I don't think it's just coincidental that Zechariah here is using language that contrasts the donkey again. He's going to cut off the chariot. Donkeys don't pull chariots. Warhorses pull chariots. And speaking of warhorses, the warhorse from Jerusalem will be no more. This is about bringing peace. Ephraim is part of the 12 tribes, of course. It's about bringing peace to Israel and to Jerusalem. Israel, the 10 tribes of Israel are long gone, and yet the war will be ended in Ephraim, one of the northern tribes. The war horse won't be in Jerusalem anymore. It'll be a time of peace. Micah describes it as the swords being turned into plowshares. People will stop fighting with each other because of the king on the donkey. It's almost a riddle. What kind of donkey destroys chariots and overturns chariots and destroys warhorses? This donkey does. He'll break the bows, it says in the noodle verse, and the bow will be broken over his knee. And he will speak peace to the nations. This is a global peace. He shall rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. You know, the whole Palestinian protest and everything right now. And there's a chanting from the river to the sea and it's supposed to be an anti-semitic phrase that Palestine wants authority from the river to the sea. I have yet to see any analyst on the news or on social media, anybody anywhere, point out the obvious fact to a Bible student that from the river to the sea is a biblical expression. And it's not about Palestine and it is not about Israel in its current state. It's about the dominion of the Messiah. When he comes, he will rule from the river to the sea. He will rule the whole earth. In other words, the river here being the Jordan River, the sea being the Mediterranean Sea and everything around the world. And Zechariah makes that so clear. River to the sea is a common Old Testament expression about the Messiah's reign. It's in Psalm 89, for example, all over the place. But here you have it from sea to sea and from river to the ends of the earth. One more comment about commentaries in this and then I'll stop it. Commentators are divided about if this is an exilic psalm, in which case this might be the Tigris River, or is it, you know, a post-exilic psalm, in which case it's the Jordan River. And my conclusion is that it doesn't matter because it's from whatever river it is over the whole earth. If it's from the Euphrates, it includes the Jordan and the Tigris. If it's from the Jordan, it includes the Euphrates River. It covers the whole planet the Messiah's reign does. Everywhere. It is global, not just global conquering, but global peace is what the Savior will bring. And then finally, number seven, he brings in a new covenant. He's a covenantal king and he brings in a new covenant. This covenant is inaugurated with blood as for you also because of the blood of my covenant with you. I take this to be the new covenant, not the Abrahamic covenant, although there was the animals that were cut in half of the Abrahamic covenant. The Mosaic covenant has the blood of the sacrifices offered all the time. The Davidic covenant in that sense is a bloodless covenant. This here is the kind of covenant that is connected to the Saviors coming to Jerusalem. It's connected with the global peace the Savior brings. Jesus declares in Luke 22 in the upper room, he says, as the Father covenanted to me a kingdom, so I covenant this kingdom with you. The Father made it with me a covenant. And then he takes up the cup and says, this is the blood of the covenant that has been given to me. He takes the bread. This is the bread of the covenant that is given to me. I won't eat of this again till I eat of it with you in my kingdom. Very clearly new covenant language. That's echoing what's here. It is the blood of the covenant that establishes peace and liberates, verse 11 says, prisoners from the waterless pits. That people are delivered. They receive salvation. Even those that have died in faith receive salvation through the blood of the new covenant. So that's the description of the Savior tucked away here in the middle of Zechariah chapter 9. That he will be all of these things, a king who is righteous, who will be a saviour. He's humble. He's not a donkey. He brings global peace by inaugurating the new covenant. Now flip, if you will, in your Bibles to the gospel according to Luke. Luke chapter 19, page 878 in a few Bibles, if you're using one of those. This is tracking here. Luke is tracking Jesus's journey from the Mount of Transfiguration down back into Jerusalem. Jesus is preaching along the way. He's been preaching about the coming of the kingdom. He's been telling his parables that have been dotting this whole journey as he's going down into Jerusalem. He goes down first to Jericho. That's Luke 19 at the beginning. Well, Luke 18, he heals the beggar outside of Jericho. So on his way in, blind Bartimaeus is healed by what they identify as Luke 18, verse 37, Jesus of Nazareth heals him. He's associated with the Son of David, the blind person who says, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. This is Jesus entering Jericho. Chapter 19, verse 1, he enters Jericho. He passes through. It's the conversion of Zacchaeus. Jesus then tells a parable about using your wealth well. That's verses 11 all the way through 27. And from there, we're going to Jerusalem. So there's momentum here. In other words, from the miracle of the blind person to Jericho, there's momentum pushing him towards Jerusalem. It's sometimes called down to Jerusalem, often up because you're ascending a hill to get up from Jericho. You're going uphill into the mountains to Jerusalem. And that's where Jesus is headed here. And that's what you see in verse 29. He said these things. He went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. And going on ahead means ahead of the crowd, ahead of the disciples. Jesus is leading the charge. He's not following an entourage. He's leading an entourage into Jerusalem. when he drew near to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount that is called Olivet. So this is the top. If you've been to Israel, this is where everybody does the group pictures up here. It's the top of the Mount of Olives. From the top of the Mount of Olives behind you, you see the temple. And it's not like you have to squint to see the temple. It's, no, it's huge. And it's right there. There's a whole valley in the way, but you are overshadowed by the massive temple. That's where Jesus stops. There's a church there now to commemorate where this conversation took place, a little statue of a donkey and everything. It's right there. You can see the temple. Today, you can see the temple. No, there's no temple there today. But the Temple Mount is there. The mosque is there. The Dome of the Rock is there. And it's all just staring at you like eyeball to eyeball. It's right there, even though there's a valley in the way. And that's where this conversation takes place. Jesus is up there on top at Bethpage, Bethany, on the mount that is called the Mount of Olives. And from there, he sends two disciples ahead of him. So now, he's swinging disciples ahead of him, saying, go into the village in front of you. On entering, you will find a colt's tide, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this, the Lord has need of it. Now Luke is restrained. Mark goes on and on about the donkey. Luke is restrained here. But the point is you're getting more verses about the donkey again. And it's kind of like cloak and dagger style, isn't it? Like go into the village, nod, nod, wink, wink. Find a donkey that no one has ever ridden on, untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you about it, this is the catchphrase. This is your mission. If you choose to accept it. This message will self-destruct in five seconds. The Lord has need of it. So those who were sent away found it just as he told him. Now you could say, oh, this is just prophecy. Jesus was familiar with Zechariah. So he knows he's got to ride a donkey. So that's what he's going to do. Yeah, there's no prophecy about this. We get lots of deets about the donkey, but we don't get that nobody ever ridden him before. And now you get this idea that Jesus knows where to find him. And he comes up, sends his disciples to go get him. And they say, run time, the cult, its owner said to them, this guy is serious. A second ago, Jesus said, if anyone says to you, what are you doing? Say, his Lord has needs to it. Well, of course, who's going to intercept the dude stealing the donkey? The owner of the donkey. So the owner, in verse 33, comes up to him and says, why are you stealing my donkey? And they said, the Lord has need of it. What Lord? This is the owner of the donkey, the owner of the cult. But they tell the guy, the Lord needed it. And the guy lets it go. And they brought it to Jesus. Matthew says they took the donkey's mother with him also. This donkey had never been ridden before. And these disciples, they didn't go out and break the donkey. They didn't go train it. They took this donkey that had never been broken before. They bring it over and bring his mom to keep it company, I guess. The owner lets him take it. This whole thing is demonstrating the supernatural knowledge of the Lord. The Lord knew where this animal would be. The Lord made the donkey and now he's claiming it back. It's almost like these guys are telling the owner, yeah, I know it's your donkey technically, but the Lord made him. He just needs to borrow him for a minute. I don't know if the donkey ever gets back to its owners or the owners follow it. Who knows? But they bring it to Jesus, verse 35. They throw their cloaks on the colt. They set Jesus on it. Jesus is passive here. He's being enthroned by his people. They're acting on Jesus and putting him on it. They set him on it. Verse 36, as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. And as he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives. This is a very steep hill. It's not like Grand Canyon kind of steep. But it's pretty steep. Walking this hill, today they have railings on it and it's slippery today. And the hill has not gotten more or less steep in the 2,000 years. There are graves all over this hill. The graves have been there forever. The sill's topography is relatively stable and it is hard to walk down. The path that they followed, that the disciples followed with Jesus on the donkey is likely the same path that it was today because these graves go back forever. It's likely the very same path that's a road today. And it is steep, and Jesus on the back of a donkey, and the donkey is on coats. That itself is supernatural. The donkey doesn't fall here. And they usher him down, and everybody is cheering Jesus on. And the scene here is Jesus is descending the hill to get up to the temple. And every time I read this, I think of Psalm 24. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? The hill of the Lord is where the temple is. Who is allowed to walk up to the temple? Only him who has clean hands and a pure heart and who has not lifted up his soul to another, who has made no rash vow. I mean, we're all disqualified. No human being one would think could ascend the Lord's holy hill to worship him in his holy place. If you've ever sinned with your hands, if you've ever sinned with your mouth, if you've ever failed to love the Lord like you ought or to serve him like you should, you are not able to ascend the holy mountain to worship God in his temple. And yet Jesus is doing that right now. You remember how Psalm 24 ends? With lift up your heads O gate, throw open the gates because, you remember Psalm 24? The King of glory is coming in. The King of glory, high and mighty is coming in. So you better open up gates. Jesus is fulfilling Psalm 24 right here. Nobody else can walk up to the temple to worship. And Jesus is riding in on the colt, on the full of a colt of donkey here, riding in, jackets on the road, up to worship God in the temple as he has been directed. He has authority over the place, it's his place. And the crowd meanwhile is rejoicing Verse 37, he's winding all the way down the Mount of Olives. This takes, you know, it takes probably 20 minutes to walk today. There's a massive crowd with a whole multitude described of his disciples rejoicing and praising God. So this is probably like a 20 minute or so journey from the top down to the bottom there with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen. So these are people that have been with him now. They saw blind Bartimaeus healed outside of Jericho. They saw Zacchaeus. that saved from out of the sycamore tree. They brought palm branches with them. Palm branches aren't from Jerusalem, of course, but palm branches grow all over Jericho. So this is a traveling entourage that brought the branches with them and they're worshiping Jesus by throwing the palm branches and throwing the coats. And they're singing verse 38, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. That's Psalm 118, 118, the Hillel Psalm. And they sing this song all the time. Every year at Passover they sing this psalm. It's a common psalm that is sung on the Sabbath. Everybody knows this song and now they're singing it and attributing it to Jesus. They're calling him the king. And by saying blessed is the king, they're connecting this to Zechariah 9. The crowd is making the connection that here comes the king on the donkey. They're rejoicing. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Peace again from Zechariah 9. The Messiah will bring in global peace. Now that of course doesn't happen at his first coming. The global peace comes at his second coming. But the donkey was most certainly at his first coming. At his second coming he does not come on a donkey. Remember his second coming he comes on a stallion and a sword and there's blood all the way up to the saddle on the horse. A very different scene. But for now he comes in. Like this, in verse 39, some of the Pharisees in the crowd. So Pharisees have been picked up. Said, teacher, rebuke your disciples. Well, rebuke them for what? For singing Psalm 118? Can't you keep them quiet? And Jesus answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. The Pharisees reject this scene. The Pharisees know Zechariah 9. The Pharisees know what this scene represents, but the Pharisees reject it, and that's why they want the disciples to be quiet. It is not the crowd was more biblically literate than the Pharisees. If anything, the opposite was probably true, but the crowd had eyes of faith enough to see Jesus for who he was. The Pharisees did not. They didn't care about the DNA of the animal, if it was a colt or a foal or a donkey that hadn't been written on before. They didn't care about any of that. All they cared about is they were rejecting Jesus. And so they tell Jesus to silence the disciples. And Jesus responds with, if the disciples were silent, these very stones would cry out. I don't know what stones Jesus is referencing. Some people say the stones of the temple because he's going to use this phrase again in a few days. He's going to say just a few days from now that every stone is going to be overturned because Jerusalem didn't receive. It's king when it came. In fact, when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, that's from the same place the donkey set out at. That's back on the top of the Mount of Olives, coming from Bethany, Bethpage. He does this walk every day all week. He walks this hill every day all week. And one of the days he weeps over Jerusalem and says, I wish you knew what would make for peace. Then he tells them on the last day he makes it on Wednesday, these stones are all going to be torn down. So maybe that's what he means here, that if everybody is quiet, then the stones will come down. And the Pharisees succeed in silencing everybody. They chased the Christians out of Jerusalem. And Jesus's prophecy is fulfilled. The temple is destroyed. The stones do cry out as they are torn down. Maybe he means that. But also, if you have done this walk, you know that the stones that are all over this walk are on top of the graves. The Jews put stones on top of all of their graves for all kinds of reasons that we don't have time to go into tonight. But that seems to be pretty likely as well, that Jesus might be meaning that. They're the stones that are the closest at hand right now. If the disciples don't worship, God is going to raise the dead and they're going to worship kind of language. It could also even just be an idiom, that it's natural for Christians to sing. And to tell a Christian not to sing would be as successful as telling stones to start singing. You yell at a stone and say, sing stone. The stone's not going to listen to you. Stone doesn't care. You tell a Christian, don't sing, Christian. You're going to have as much luck as you did talking to stone. Either way, the disciples keep singing. They keep worshipping because they know who the Lord is. This is how the Easter celebration begins. The Easter celebration begins with the Palm Sunday message that Jesus, the Saviour, walks into Jerusalem to the songs and the acclaim clearly fulfilling a prophecy that he is the messianic king that was foretold. He is the king who can approach the temple. The Son of God will not dwell in a temple made by human hands. Of course, he goes to the temple. He turns over the tables. That's where he's headed. Goes to the temple, turns over the tables. He's not going to make his home there. In fact, he says it will be torn down. David couldn't build the temple for God, and David's son won't even spend the night there. Remember, he goes in and cleanses it, and then goes back to Bethany and spends the night there instead. and start your celebration of Easter as we look forward to the time of Jesus, not just entering Jerusalem every day this Holy Week, but entering Jerusalem the final time where he will ultimately be put to death at the bottom of the Mount of Olives is where the Garden of Gethsemane is, where Jesus goes to pray at night and where he's arrested and betrayed and ultimately crucified for our sin. God, we're grateful for our King who led a sinless life, a holy life, who fulfilled prophecy, and yet he was killed for our sin. The stones were correct in marking the Savior's entrance into Jerusalem. The disciples are correct in praising his name and seeing him as fulfilling Zechariah 9, as fulfilling Psalm 24, as fulfilling Psalm 118. All those things are obvious. The Pharisees had hard hearts. I pray for our congregations tonight, I pray that our hearts would be soft, that we would have the attitude of disciples, that we would be singing Christians, rejoicing in who you are. Guard us from the deception of the Pharisees who feel like they can silence truth by turning down the volume. And we wanna magnify you, rejoicing in who you are. We give you thanks in Jesus' name, amen. And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. Thanks for joining us. If you're in the Washington, D.C. area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church. For more information on our church or our current service times, go to ibc.church. For more information about the Master's Seminary and their Washington, D.C. location, go to tms.edu. I hope this resource has been a blessing to you, and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.