We come in our exposition of the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel to chapter 12. We'll be taking as our text verses 12 to 19. So, John 12, verses 12 to 19. We begin with the words, On the next day, much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees. and went forth to meet him. It is within man's nature to be fickle. People sometimes flip-flop and flip-flop rather easily. They go from being fans to foes overnight. You'll see people with adulation and it being turned into animosity, or hurrahs turned into hatred, seemingly turning on a dime. In the scene that is set before us in this portion of the gospel, there is something that seems so incredibly right about what is being depicted. They are heralding Christ as the great King and welcoming Him, bidding Him welcome into the city of Jerusalem. There's something that is so right about that. And yet at the same time, there is something that somehow seems wrong. And that becomes even more obvious to us as the gospel continues to unfold. Here they are hailing him as the great king. However, we discover he's not the kind of king that they imagine. We see them rejoicing with great hosannas. And yet all of that soon turns to shouts and cries. Crucify him. Crucify him. And so there is sort of a mixed response that we feel when coming to this particular passage. It is wonderful. It is glorious. There's something spectacular about seeing our king receiving a kingly welcome. as he ought to receive. But for the Christian, there's something even greater going on behind all the scenes. It's not just the hoopla. It's not just the ticker tape and the fanfare that we see described in these verses. But rather, we see the stage being set for Christ's final work. The Christian looks upon this particular incident as the Lord setting the stage for His final work. Here, all that Christ has come to accomplish at the beginning of this last week of His life begins with the King's grand entry. We know that, of course, it will end with the King's crucifixion and His death. but it is for us, his path, and thus our path, his path to obtain salvation, our path to receive that salvation. There have been many great, spectacular, extraordinary, Royal welcomes in the past, when kings and queens have been coronated, or where great generals have returned to their homes, having vanquished terrible enemies. But there is no greater welcome and no greater entrance for a king than the one that we find described in this particular passage. So we'll be looking at three things as we work our way down through verses 12 to 19. Three things. First of all, receiving the king. First of all, receiving the king. The first two verses, 12 and 13. We just read verse 12. They took branches, in verse 13, they took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. Most of you know that the Jews would gather together in Jerusalem three times a year, three big annual feasts. You had the Feast of Passover, you had the Feast of Pentecost, and you had the Feast of Tabernacles. And on this occasion, as you know, they're gathered for the Feast of Passover, that feast which God Himself appointed, that commemorated the great work of redemption and bringing them out of Exodus, the Exodus out of Egypt. So you have the slaying of the Egyptians, both in terms of killing their firstborn and then ultimately washing the riders and their horses down the river, as it were, into the sea where they were drowned and God's people delivered on dry ground. And so the Lord has set this as a monument that would call back to their remembrance His saving work, which is really crystallized in the Paschal Lamb itself, the Passover Lamb. Here is the substitute, the blood, which spared them the destruction that God brought against His enemies. So they're gathered at the time of Passover. Josephus, who is wont to exaggerate at times, said there could have been two and a half million that were packed into the city of Jerusalem at this time. There's certainly at least a half a million that would have been packed into the city, and perhaps far more. If Josephus is right, we're talking about a quarter million lambs that would have been sacrificed on this particular occasion. But the point is, Jerusalem is a packed house. It is brimming, it is overflowing with people that have pressed and pressed and pressed into the city for this great feast. And despite the fact that a an arrest warrant has been put out on the Lord Jesus Christ, nevertheless, there is a flurry of excitement. Jesus has captured and captivated the minds and mouths of the people. So they're thinking about Him, and they're talking about Him, and they're venturing even to seek Him out. So they've been told, if anyone sees Him, you're to tell us so that we can arrest Him with the aim of ultimately killing Him and Lazarus, as we saw last time. But they are not heeding these instructions. For one reason or another, some of which are good reasons, some perhaps bad reasons, they value Christ more than their own safety. And so they would catch a glimpse of Christ and be found near Christ even at whatever risk it might cost them. This is very different than, for example, what we saw with the blind man's parents who wouldn't tell the Pharisees the answers to their questions because they feared them. They knew what it might cost them. But there's the spirit here that is seen even more fully in every Christian's life. The Christian who says, I will venture whatever must be ventured in order to have Christ. The Christian says, I'm willing to give all and do all in order to have a sight of Him, in order to be near Him, to behold Him. to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that sometimes comes with great cost. In the case of murders, it comes with the ultimate sacrifice of having to die because of their allegiance to standing with Christ and with His truth. But there are a whole host of other ways in which the Christian risks something, loses something because of our attachment to the Lord Jesus Christ. One thing that should strike us is how different Jesus seems to be acting in this account, different from what we've seen anyway. in previous portions of this gospel, and of course, in the other three gospels as well. He seems to be acting different. Normally we see Christ seeking privacy, so he'll go and preach at the sea, or he'll go preach on the mountainside, but then he withdraws himself. He'll go into Jerusalem, and there'll be events that take place, and then he slips through, he withdraws. They try to nab him, and he escapes. And he goes into seclusion. He's just come out of that kind of seclusion, mind you, before returning to Bethany and then going on to Jerusalem. But now we see something different. Here we have a bold public spectacle. Christ is coming in boldness. Why exactly is this happening? Why is Jesus taking this particular approach at this particular time? And the answer is simple. The time had come for Him to die for the sins of His people. And so, He would not allow that to take place prematurely on another occasion, but he would have it take place in God's timing. So in other words, Christ is the one in control. We have all this scheming going on with the Sanhedrin and the Sadducees and the scribes and Pharisees and so on. And they're planning and plotting, thinking that somehow they can manipulate the situation to get their way. And lo and behold, the whole time, this king, the king of glory, is the one who's controlling everything. He's setting the stage. He's moving the pieces. He's determining the time. He's the one who is forcing things to happen according to His agenda, which is, of course, His Father's agenda as well. Christ is the one in control. And so he is by no means a victim. It's not as if he comes in, riding upon this ass's colt, and then is swept up under the animosity of the Pharisees and hoisted upon a cross and crucified. He is not a victim. Rather, he is coming voluntarily and willingly and freely to offer himself as a sacrifice on behalf of his people. Here we have the true Passover lamb. preparing to offer himself as the ultimate fulfillment of that Pascal in his own person, to fulfill what Daniel had spoken of, that he would be cut off and that the blood of the atonement would be shed for the salvation of the Lord's people. And so because of that, Christ places himself prominently before the nation. Christ is actually causing all eyes to be fixed on Him. He's forcing everyone's attention to be focused on Himself. And of course, the effect, as it's described in these verses, is explosive. We're told that they took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet Him. Now, branches of palm trees seems a little out of place at this point. If they're associated with anything in the Jewish festivities, they were associated with the Feast of Tabernacles. But there's more to the story than just that, because for 200 years, the palm branch had been a symbol of nationalism for the Jews. So this goes back to the Maccabean Wars. So we get to the end of the Old Testament, and then we have that 400-year period, that 400 years of silence, and then we have the beginning of the New Testament. Well, during that period, among other things, the Maccabean Wars took place. Some pretty important history for Israel as well as for the Middle East generally. And Maccabeus, their leader, had been the one who drove out the Syrians, drove them out of Jerusalem. And the palm branch had been made a symbol at that time of victory and of relief from tyranny, and had then become more of a general symbol for Jewish nationalism. But listen to their voices in particular. In verse 13, "...and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!" Hosanna! That could be translated a few different ways, but save us now. And what they're doing is they're actually quoting from Psalm 118. We'll be singing this at the table next Lord's Day. Psalm 118, verses 25 and 26. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. And so there's great fervor and enthusiasm and jubilation and delight, and they're thinking to themselves, this is it. You know, they're singing this song and shouting these words. He is coming in the name of the Lord. This is the one who has come to save us. And yet, all of the while, they have something in their minds that does not comport with what God is intending. They're thinking in the very restrictive sense of liberation from Roman tyranny. They're thinking at long last we're going to rid Caesar from over top of us and secure our independence and so on. When all the while the Lord is coming not for some relatively puny military victory, but rather he's coming to secure the salvation of all of his people in all ages. A salvation that will not be limited to the city of Jerusalem, nor to the nation of Israel, but will extend to the four corners of the earth and encompass the whole world. And so it is something far greater that he intends than what they attend. And so one is forced to think about Christ's own reaction. Here is all of this hoopla. What is Christ's reaction? His reaction is actually lament. His reaction is lament. Remember how it's given to us elsewhere? He comes to Jerusalem, and he looks over Jerusalem, and he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. We're told that he weeps, he sheds tears. How I would have gathered thee as chicks under a hen's wing, and ye would not. There is lament and sorrow that characterizes the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a king, indeed he is a king, but not the kind that meets their military or political triumphalism. He comes, rather, on an ass. He's found a young ass which he sat upon, an ass's colt. In other words, he's coming with meekness. He is coming in a lowly fashion. He's coming with peace. You know, a leader would go out, a king might go out on a great steed, out to war. But they would often come back, we see it with David, we see it with Solomon, they would come back into the city on an ass, because it was a symbol of peace, the slow return into the city, signifying the peace that he was bringing. And yet the Jews end up being offended by this. They end up, in fact, rejecting the kind of kingship that He comes offering them. He, the Lord Jesus, rejects their offer. We will make you king. And they have rejected His. He's come with humiliation at this stage. This is not the time for exaltation. This is the time for humiliation. And so he is being received as the king and ought to be received as a king on his own terms. I mean, we are called upon to receive him as a king, not just as a king, as the king, the king of kings. This is one of the demands of the gospel. is that when Christ is preached, He is set forth before us as our prophet, our priest, our king. We could go on to describe all of the ways that He's our sacrifice and atoning merit and righteousness. But among other things, He's to be received as a king. You can't say to the Lord Jesus Christ, I will be happy to take the blood in order to be free from the... the demands of hell, but I will not have Christ rule over me. For a person to say, I want the forgiveness of sins, but I do not want subjection to Christ's reign and lordship, that is impossible. The gospel does not provide any such delusion. To have Christ is to have him as a king, to receive him as the Lord, as the one who rules and reigns over us. and who subdues us unto Himself. So we see in the Lord's Prayer, we're to pray, Thy kingdom come. In that, what are we asking for? We're asking that the King, Christ, would advance the kingdom of grace. That He would cause it to advance and to go forth with strength. That He would simultaneously destroy the kingdom of Satan. that it would be reduced more and more and more to rubble, and that best of all, he would hasten the kingdom of glory, that which every Christian anticipates with great eagerness. So first of all, receiving the king, Secondly, remembering the king's words. That's another way of saying remembering scripture. Remembering the king's words in verses 14, 15, and 16. And Jesus, when he had found a young ass sat thereon, as it is written, fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not His disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him. What do we have here? We have comparing Scripture with Scripture. We're taking one portion of Scripture, and then we're looking at what the rest of Scripture has to say by way of shedding light on this particular passage. And so within the Bible itself, we find the Bible comparing the Bible to itself, various portions being harnessed to help our understanding. And what we discover so often in the New Testament is the minute fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The minute fulfillment of all of these Old Testament prophecies. And of course, there are entire books that have been written which catalog these. for our edification. And it's staggering when you begin to think about all of the ways that the Lord has woven throughout the Old Testament Scripture these pointers that are pointing forward to Christ, which Christ then comes and steps into which He takes up and exhaustively fulfills. This particular passage that's being quoted is the one that we read in our Old Testament reading from Zechariah 9. And verse 9, "'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. Now, it's interesting. We read the whole chapter earlier. And if we had time, it would be, I think, helpful to all of us to look more carefully at the context here of Zechariah 9. Because the Lord, for example, in verses 9 and 10, we see that this King that's coming is bringing peace to all the nations. So this isn't about Jerusalem, this isn't about the leadership of some little group of people, but it is a king who is coming to extend peace to all of the nations. Zechariah, of course, at the time, was writing when Israel was without a king. The king had been hauled off into Babylonian exile. And so it would accentuate all the more the value of what the Lord is saying here. This is a rebuke, really, to the Jews who are fixating on their own self-interest. He has come as a king to be Messiah the Prince, who would be Prince of the Kings of the Earth, who would be the Governor of the Nations, who would be the Lord over all. And so it's a warning to us, isn't it? Our agenda must be the one that God prescribes in His Word. Our agenda, in other words, must match God's agenda. We have to be thinking God's thoughts after Him. And we need to be prioritizing what God's prioritized and seeking the end that God is seeking. So that can have far-reaching implications corporately. Churches as churches, what is it that we are exactly seeking to do? Does it match what God's agenda is? We can apply it equally to our families. What is the character, direction, priority? What is it that our families are pursuing? And it can extend down to us as individuals. It's all too easy to begin to concoct a plan for our own lives. This is what I want to be, this is what I want to do, this is where I'm going to go, this is how I'm going to accomplish it, without pausing to say, does my agenda match God's agenda? It's a searching question for us, but one that is necessary for us to both ask and answer. He comes on Ananas' colt in fulfillment of this Old Testament passage, depicting humility, depicting meekness, not arrogant might, but he is coming, yes, with victory, but victory under God's sovereignty. In other words, Jesus, not only is Jesus nothing like the Jews were hoping for, Jesus in many ways is nothing like most of the leaders in any given generation, including our own. So you compare the capital K King to all of the little K Kings of this world. those who have not subjected themselves to the capital K, King. And what do we find? Well, political leaders have one primary aim, whatever their ideology is, and it's usually pretty self-focused. There's power, there's prestige, there's personal gain, there's prosperity. None of these go into office and come out a cent poorer. They come out much wealthier after having served in their offices. There's a tendency to fleece the people, to take from the people in order to acquire things for themselves. And that's true all over the world, including America, of course. But in contrast, we have Christ. And look at this king. Not only is he coming with humility and meekness, but Christ comes to give rather than to take. Christ comes and He gives out of His own resources to the benefit of the people. Christ comes and dies. He sacrifices himself for the benefit of the people. He's abasing himself for the people. He was a friend of publican and sinners during his earthly ministry. And he is a king who came to save. And so he is altogether different. This is a king worth Shouting over he is a king worth shouting over so they are right to be shouting Hosanna Blessed as he that comes in the name of the Lord remember in the gospel of Luke the previous book in chapter 19 where it says in verse 39, And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. This is in response to them saying, Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord. Rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. This is a king that is worth shouting over. And so the Lord is showing himself to be the one who fulfills scripture. Now it goes on in verse 16, and it tells us the disciples were not connecting the dots, at least at first. There was ignorance. There was perhaps a distortion in their thinking. And this is also, I think, instructive, because it's not as if the disciples are in any way unique in this particular case. They had an imperfect knowledge of the scripture. It's not that they didn't know their Bibles. They had sung the Psalms their whole life. They had read the Bible. They had heard it preached. They were Jews. There had been family worship and so on. But it was nevertheless an imperfect knowledge of scripture. There were inadequacies in their understanding. And so inadequacies really in some ways in their spiritual infancy. as young disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Among other things, it should invoke within us a measure of compassion, right? You have people who are young in the faith, and they're growing, and they're reading, and they're trying to learn, and there's a lot that they haven't understood. And there's perhaps a lot of things they haven't sorted out. They don't understand particular doctrines or the implications for practice in certain areas of their life. seen how some things are connected to other things within the Bible, and there ought to be patience, love, compassion, forbearance in such circumstances. We don't expect of our infants to be able to eat, you know, a 16 ounce steak. We don't expect them to be able to mow the lawn or haul the garbage and so on. There's a development that takes place. There's growth and it's true spiritually. There's a growth. things that are dark at one point become clearer to us. And so there are things that seem, wow, this is hard to understand, it's complicated, I don't get it, I'm not able to really get my mind around it, and yet we continue to persevere and studying and thinking and reading and praying over these truths, and we discover to our surprise at times, but always to our delight, there are things that are now clear, that at one time were foggy and difficult to us. And this is a continual process of growth. There's a maturation, a maturity of growth in our knowledge of God's Word. And that takes place, of course, it takes place through the means of the Word and the Spirit working together. We were highlighting this in our catechism class last week. You can't have the word without the spirit. You can't have the spirit without the word. These two things go together. The spirit uses the word, illuminates our minds, and enables us to understand the word in order that we can come to greater grasp of the truth. And so we need to be much in the Bible under the preaching of God's word, the reading of God's word, memorizing and meditating upon it, singing it and so on. And we need to be doing all of that with a conscious dependence upon the spirit, asking God to give the Holy Spirit with power that these truths would be coming to us forcefully, that we would be able to comprehend them, We also note, I think, in verse 16, the relationship of prophecy and providence, right? We've talked in the past about the relationship of prophecy and history. Prophecy and providence, same or similar type of theme. These two things have to be put together. And in this passage, when you see prophecy and providence put together, lights come on. You can see the light of what's happening here. There's a harmony between God's Word and God's works. What he said and what he does. And that's being made clear. They remembered that these things were written. There's the prophecy. There's the things pertaining to God's word, and that they had done these things unto him. Well, there's the providence, there's the works of God that are being unfolded, and these two things go together. And so there's a remembering of the king's word, remembering scripture. Thirdly, there is the response to the king in verses 17, 18, and 19, response to the king. The people, therefore, that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave and raised him from the dead bear record. For this cause, the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him. Here we see responses to the king. There's, first of all, the witnesses of Lazarus's resurrection. So the crowd that had been there and seen all of those events unfold. And then gathered with those people are the crowd that had heard their testimony. And there's something very good about this. Christ, the divine Lord of glory, the God-man who has shown his power in raising Lazarus, they ought to have borne that on the winds in telling others about who Christ is and what Christ has done. And so there's something good there. In those last two words of verse 17, they bear record There were incontestable proofs of this miracle. And they're proclaiming Christ's power to Christ's honor. And there's influence there. And so that's appropriate. It's absolutely, in fact, essential. I mean, we receive God's Word. We see who Christ is. We see what Christ has done in the Bible, in His saving work, in history, in our own personal lives. It's incumbent upon us. There are constraints upon us to bear record of that. To tell of Christ's work to Christ's honor to others. So the idea of a mute Christian is a fanciful thing. There's no such thing as a mute Christian. There's no possibility of being a Christian and never ever speaking about the things of the King. Now, it happens in various degrees and ways, but we bear record. If we profess him before men, he'll profess us before the Father who is in heaven. If we deny him before men, he'll deny us before the Father that is in heaven. This is part of what it means to be A Christian, we speak about the things that we think about, and we think about what we love. And for the Christian, we love Christ most, therefore think about Him most, therefore are going to end up speaking about Him as well. So there's something good there, but it is mixed, isn't it? There's a bad side to this as well, and this becomes more and more clear as the gospel unfolds. But we have a precursor of it here. What do these Jews really, really want? Well, nothing's changed. What we saw back at the feeding of the 5,000 and the response is still the same. Remember where Jesus says, you are not coming to me for the right reasons. You want bread from me. So there's been this miraculous display and you're attracted because of what benefit you get out of it. And here too, perhaps they want to harness his power for their own purposes. They want what he'll give them, but that's very different than wanting him or wanting him to rule over them. It's very different from saving grace, from faith in Christ as the mediator and savior of his people. And it forces us to pause and to ask the question, how is it, whether you're a little person or a big person, how do you view Christ? How primarily do you view Christ? Do you view Christ in terms of what He will give to you? He will help your success. He will help your security. It's very easy to think, well, I want to be a Christian so that I can have a godly marriage, because that would be wonderful. Or I want to be a Christian because then maybe I can have godly children, and that would be wonderful. Or I want to be a Christian because it furnishes me with the ability to intellectually make sense of the world, and that's very satisfying. Or, I want to be a Christian because of, and you can fill in the blank, there's all sorts of things. In other words, are we viewing Christ merely as someone who is able to deliver to us things for us that no one else could give to us? Or in contrast, when we view Christ, do we hear the call to confess our sins? Do we find ourselves magnetically attracted to His blood, which is able to cleanse us from our sins? Do we view Christ as the Lord of glory, as He is, as the Savior of sinners, as the one who is worthy of our worship and adoration, because we desire not only to receive and believe His Word, but we desire to serve and deny ourselves and worship and glorify Him with all that is in us. Is our desire to see Him glorified or us glorified? That's the question, isn't it? Is our aim to ultimately bring Him the glory that is due to His great name? Well, the Pharisees are even in a worse position because the Pharisees are basically kicking rocks in the middle of a road, right? They are They're frustrated. Christ has defeated them again. He escapes their noose over and over. He overturns all of their efforts to silence him. And the more they're angry and the more they seek to kill him and to eliminate him, the more he seems to grow and his influence seems to extend. And so he's defeated them again. And they're unnerved by it. They're saying, look, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? That all of the things that we're trying to do, we put a death warrant out, we put a arrest warrant out on him and nothing is coming of it. What's happening? It's what we saw earlier. These Pharisees are scurrying around. And little do they know they are playing into Christ's hand. They are merely accomplishing divine purposes. And so they think they have the power. They think they're calling the shots. They think they can somehow win this war. And yet the fact is, when at their moment of greatest success, they have actually reached the moment of greatest defeat. When they finally arrest Him, and arraign Him, and condemn Him, and then crucify Him, and think at long last we've gotten our way, they have only fulfilled the purpose for which Christ came into the world at the beginning. And He, as the King, is sacrificing Himself for the salvation of His people. They are playing into His hands. Opposition against Christ can never, ever, ever, ever prevail. And it doesn't matter if it's the Diocletian persecution of the early church where they unleash, as it were, the firestorm of some of the fiercest persecution they could muster. The gospel exploded. It doesn't matter if communist regimes decide that they're going to eradicate the Christian faith. What ends up happening is they themselves are dismantled. And the kingdom of Christ grows and has the victory. It is impossible to oppose an infinitely powerful king. This is not just another monarch who's on the wave of success. This is the Lord. This is the King of Kings, the one who is truly and ultimately invincible. He cannot be prevailed over. This is true personally as well. So you think, some of you think to yourselves, well, I can skirt the demands of Christ. I can ignore the gospel. I can live life my way. I can do things as I see best. I can carry on with what interests I have and not submit to Christ and be just fine. And it is a pipe dream. It's the worst. It's a pipe nightmare. Right? It is complete delusion. It is folly heaped upon folly. Those who turn their face against Christ are destroying themselves and will destroy themselves in this life, ultimately in what follows, in hell itself. So all this opposition is a vain and empty show. In Psalm 112, verses 9 and 10, he hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness endureth forever, his horn shall be exalted with honor, the wicked shall see it and be grieved, he shall gnash with his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked shall perish. None can vanquish the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Pharisees say, look, the whole world has gone after him. And little do they know the truth of their words. It's far more than they could ever dream because This is using language metaphorically, right? The whole world has gone out after him. It's not that every single inhabitant of the planet had gone out after him in Jerusalem. But it's using a graphic word, a graphic expression of how all of the host of people are following after him. And it's true. As you go back to that passage in Zechariah 9, and as we've already commented upon, the whole world will go after Him. It's not just Jerusalem. And it's not just Judah. And it's not just Israel. And it's not even Samaria. But to the ends of the earth, there will be men and women, boys and girls, every tribe, every tongue, every race, every ethnicity gathered under his throne in one mass as his people. The Lord is not defeated, he is defeating his enemy. And so in this passage, we are being called upon, you are being called upon to behold your king. Here we have this grand entry, and you are being called upon to behold your King. This is not the first time, nor is it the last entry of the King. We could say the first entry of the King was given to us at the beginning of the gospel, wasn't it? In Christ's incarnation, we have the first entry of the King. And what's the response? Remember the language of the angels speaking to the shepherds. It's the language of the glory of a king that is coming, or for that matter, the three wise men bringing gifts, as it were, to a king. We have this entry here at the end of Christ's ministry as well. And then there's, of course, a third entry, namely at Christ's ascension. where the heavens open up in order to receive the Lord of glory back to where he belongs. And so what an experience it would have been to have been on that side of the clouds. where all of the angels are looking in astonishment that the second person of the Trinity has been incarnate and come and carried out this earthly ministry in His human nature, sacrificed, died upon a cross and so on, only to be received back as the triumphant King. I mean, that entry of Christ at His ascension back into heaven itself. But there's still another yet, isn't there? There is the last entry of the King, which yet awaits us in His second coming, where we're told the heavens will be rent, and the clouds will be rolled back, and the Lord will descend with a shout, and He'll be coming as a King in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 24. It says in verse 23, afterward they that are Christ's at His coming, then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule and authority and power, for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. Here is a king. who will be coming in all of his glory in his second return. And so the New Testament ends really on that note. And in Revelation chapter 22, behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. So we're called upon to behold our King. This, my friends, is a King worthy of worship. We sing in the metrical version of Psalm 24, ye gates lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors be lifted up. Here it is, be lifted up, that so the King of glory enter may. But who of glory is the King? But who of glory is the King? The mighty Lord is this. Even that same Lord, who great in might and strong in battle is, the psalm ends, the Lord of hosts and none but He, the King of glory is. Let's stand together for prayer. O Lord, our God in heaven, we confess that we do have another king, one named Jesus, and we are thankful that he is the great king, the king of glory, the Lord of hosts, and we pray that you would draw at our hearts to worship and adore him. Enable us, O Lord, to to see the beauty that belongs to him, and to bow down our knees and hearts before him in service and adoration and love, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.