We continue in the Gospel of Luke. This morning we're in chapter 19, verse 28. Luke 19, 28. After he had said these things, he was going on ahead up to Jerusalem. When he approached Bethpage and Bethany near the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village ahead of you. There, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? you shall say, The Lord has need of it. So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owner said to them, Why are you untying the colt? They said, The Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it. And as He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. Soon as he was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. But Jesus answered, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, But now they've been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. And they will level you to the ground and your children within you. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us the knowledge that you indeed did send Jesus. We grieve for the nation of Israel that rejected Him and suffered Your judgment. At the same time, Lord, we offer our words of gratitude that You've revealed these things to us, unworthy as we are. And we pray, Lord, that You will make us effective witnesses of the glory of Christ, our King, our Redeemer. And in His name we pray. As we came to the gospel of Luke in chapter 17, around verse 11, we saw that Luke told us Jesus had departed from Galilee and was on His way to Jerusalem. Now we have to remember, all four Gospels are written from the perspective of each writer. Though at the same time inspired by the Spirit of God. But they're not all, or perhaps any of them, terribly concerned with giving us a chronology of dates and times and places. They're concerned with telling us that the King of all the universe has come. Matthew said to the Jews in his Gospel, Behold your King. Luke is writing, it seems, primarily to Gentiles. And telling them that Jesus is the Son of God made flesh. Who's come to die so that we might have life. John wrote after the other three gospel writers. And he writes in large part about the deity, the divinity of Jesus. He writes from the very beginning of his gospel, you recall. And the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God. And the Word was with God. The Word was made flesh. And now this Word made flesh, fully man, fully God, has departed from Galilee. And he's going to Jerusalem, 70 miles to the south, for the sole purpose of offering himself on a cross as a sacrifice to God for the sins of those he came to save. And there were large crowds, as we've seen, following Jesus. And they were all traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. So it became something of a caravan. And Jesus had stopped in Jericho, 16 miles northeast of Jerusalem, and had restored the sight of two men. And what was significant about that event was that they had addressed Jesus by the messianic title, Son of David. The Jews knew and were told that the Messiah would be a son of Abraham and a son of David. Now of all the four evangelists, only John tells us that Jesus did not go directly from Jericho to Jerusalem. that between the events in Jericho and his entry into Jerusalem, while the Galilean pilgrims had headed straight to Jerusalem, Jesus had gone to a small village called Bethany, two miles to the east of Jerusalem. And there he raised his friend Lazarus from death back to life. Only John tells us about this. But the thing is, we don't get the full sense of the events surrounding Jesus' entry into Jerusalem apart from understanding the reaction of the people to His raising of Lazarus. So I want us to turn to John chapter 11, where we learn that Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus that His friend, as they call Him, their brother Lazarus, was ill. Seriously ill. John chapter 11, verse 7, Jesus says to the twelve, let us go to Judea again. And you notice in verse 8, the disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And you're going to go back there again? Now remember, it was John who, for the most part, was the one who recounted Jesus' visits to Jerusalem during what was primarily a Galilean ministry during his time on earth. And we see here that Jesus had very recently met with hostility in Judea. Last time he was there, and it wasn't long before, they were trying to stone him to death. So when Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been dead for four days. John 11, 19 tells us many of the Jews were there to console Martha and Mary. And after Jesus spoke with them, He came to Lazarus' tomb and beholding this man who was dead. And death is the wages of sin. He's beholding the ravages of sin. And this caused him to weep. Jesus wept. So He told them to remove the stone that had been placed at the entrance of the tomb, and that's what they did. John 11, 41, that Jesus raised His eyes and said, Father, I thank You that You have heard me. I knew that You always hear me. Now look at this. But because of the people standing around, I said it so that they may believe that You sent me. This was always the purpose of the miracles. To validate the one performing it as a messenger of God. Well when Jesus had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And the man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings. His face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go. Now just imagine being there that day. Imagine somebody comes and tells you about this. Well, word of Jesus' raising of Lazarus quite naturally spread throughout the region around Jerusalem. Now this is only two miles from Jerusalem. Many were amazed. They were saying, who could this be? But the Jewish religious leaders, remember, they were angry at all that Jesus was doing. And now they were fearful. John tells us how they responded to the raising of Lazarus in John 11, 45. It says, Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he had done believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus had done. Therefore, the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council. This was their response to the news of Jesus raising Lazarus. They convene a council and they're saying, What are we doing? This man is performing many signs. If we let him keep going like this, all men will believe in him and the Romans are going to come and take away both our place and our nation. So verse 53, from that day on they planned together to kill him. Look down to verse 57. Not only that, the chief priests and Pharisees gave orders that if anyone knew where he was, he was to report it to them so they might arrest him. Now by his raising of Lazarus, Jesus deliberately evoked this response. Remember, He's told people, don't tell the people or the priests about these miracles I'm working. But now it was time. Now it was time for everybody to know. Now it was time for everything to come out in the open because He knew the response that would be evoked. He knew that as a result of this miracle, The crowds, which were enormous in Jerusalem for the Passover, would be very enthusiastic. And that their enthusiasm and excitement was going to incite the Jewish religious leaders at Jerusalem. And they would be motivated by their own sinful desires to carry out their plot against them. And so John tells us in verse 54, for a short time Jesus withdrew into the country. But we're just talking about a matter of days into the city called Ephraim. But He was soon to come to Jerusalem publicly. So when the large crowd that had traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover heard that Jesus was now coming into the city, John chapter 12, verse 18 tells us, that many went out to meet him, because... Now look at this. ...because they heard that he had raised Lazarus from the dead. This was the purpose of his raising Lazarus from the dead, in large part. Verse 19, we see the anger of the Pharisees continued to rise. Look, the whole world has gone after him. Now remember what we saw back in chapter 19 of Luke, in verse 11. That because Jesus was getting near to Jerusalem, His followers supposed, what? That the kingdom of God was about to appear immediately. That's what His followers were thinking. Despite all that Jesus had taught, His followers expected Him to restore the kingdom of Israel. And establish Himself as King. Even the Twelve, as we've seen, still did not understand the nature of His kingdom. And they certainly did not yet understand the necessity of the cross. Now we've seen three times in Matthew's Gospel and at least twice in Luke's. He told them He was going to Jerusalem for what purpose? To be handed over by the Jews to the Gentiles to be mocked, spit upon, ridiculed, beaten, and crucified. They didn't understand. Didn't understand the necessity of the cross. And they didn't understand that Jesus was not going to receive His kingdom until He went to the cross. That was the plan of God. They perceived the kingdom of God even as an earthly kingdom. They looked at the kingdom of God according to their own carnal desires. And even today, We have thousands, millions looking for Jesus to return and bring a mere earthly kingdom. While Jesus has promised a far more glorious, eternal, heavenly kingdom. But we're carnally minded. And so we dream up these earthly kingdoms of Jesus, just as they did. Well now, he was coming to Jerusalem not to be made king, but to be condemned to death. by the Jewish religious leaders, just as he'd said. To be delivered over to the Romans. To be tortured and ridiculed and humiliated by his execution on a cross. The most humiliating of deaths. All to satisfy the judgment and the wrath of God for the sins of all those he came to save. That's why he's there. That's why he's going through this. And it seems that day, in and around Jerusalem, nobody realized this. Even the twelve who had been closest to him. Now this account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, all four gospel writers include it in their records of His earthly life and ministry. And the story, putting all four together, pretty much goes like this. That when Jesus approached Bethpage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, He told two of His disciples to go into the village ahead of them. Maybe Bethany, maybe Bethpage. They were nearby. There you'll find this colt, the foal of a donkey, on which no one has ever sat. And he tells them to untie it and bring it to him. Now Matthew adds, the colt was with its mother and both were brought to Jesus. And he said, if anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You tell them, the Lord. The Lord has need of it. So those who were sent away found it just as he told them. And they were untying the colt and the owners came and said, why are you untying the colt? They said, the Lord has need of it. So they bring the colt and the donkey to Jesus. Now these owners, we don't know who they were. Were they friends of Jesus? Perhaps. Were they divinely moved to respond to Jesus in this way? Maybe. We're simply not told. You notice this is a cult on which no one has ever sat. And it does call to mind the unblemished sacrifices. It calls to mind a tomb in which no one had ever been laid where Jesus would be laid. The tomb owned by Joseph of Arimatheus. But the point is this, there was nothing random, there was nothing unplanned about any of the events that week. Every detail had been planned by God in eternity past. We see this in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey. This had been prophesied over 500 years earlier, the prophet Zechariah. Matthew puts it this way, Matthew 21, 4, This took place, his writing on the colt, to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, Say to the daughter of Zion, meaning the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. Now think about this. This is written down more than 500 years earlier. Announced by God. They should have known this would be the sign of Messiah. Certainly one of them. Messiah would appear and publicly reveal Himself. Not in royal attire. Not coming on a royal coach. Not in a grand white chariot. But riding on a donkey. The colt of a donkey. A beast of burden. And he wasn't riding up to a palace. His destination was a cross just outside the city. Now think about the celebration that's going on. He didn't come to become a king, not as they thought. They're out there cheering, celebrating. Matthew 21, 9 speaks of crowds, plural, that gathered First there was a crowd from Bethany that came with him from Bethany. Followed Jesus into Jerusalem. Then there was that caravan of pilgrims that had followed Jesus from Galilee who had gone on to Jerusalem when Jesus went to Bethany to raise Lazarus. In John 12, verses 12 and 13, we read that when Jesus approached Jerusalem, many of the pilgrims who came from the Passover. So these are the travelers from the north. They cut branches from palm trees and went out to welcome Jesus. Only John actually specifically mentions palm branches being placed on the road. Luke makes no mention of any branches. Some were spreading their coats on the road. And then there was a crowd that had come out from the city of Jerusalem. The locals, upon hearing that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. And was now on his way toward the city. Well you can imagine, they're coming out for the spectacle, for the entertainment of it all. They've got to see this man. So all these crowds, at least three separate crowds, come together now in one enormous throng. And the enthusiasm and the fervor of the crowds was obviously great. Many in the crowds were hailing Jesus as both the long-awaited Messiah and as the coming King of Israel, who they thought would restore the lost kingdom of Israel. Kingdom lost 600 years before. Luke 19, 37, "...as He was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully and with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen." They're praising His power. They're shouting in words from Psalm 118, which was part of the halal, as it's called, Psalms 113 through 118, which would be sung during the Passover. And here's Psalm 118 that they're shouting, Blessed is the King, the King who comes in the name of the Lord. John 12, 13, the pilgrims began to shout. Hear this, Hosanna, the Lord saves. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. They're calling Him the King of Israel. But they don't mean what we mean when we call Him Matthew 21.9, the crowds going ahead of Him and those who followed were shouting, as the two blind men had, Hosanna to the Son of David. Now they're using the messianic term. They're hailing Him as Messiah. So it seems all in the crowds were talking about Jesus, telling others about Him, listening about Him. Some hailing Him as Messiah, Son of David. Some hailing Him as King of Israel. And it was the raising of Lazarus that had stirred all this reaction among the crowds. John 12, 17. So the people who were with him, when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about him. For this reason... For this reason also, people went and met him because they heard that he had performed this sign. Matthew tells us, 2110, when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred. Now these would be certainly a reference to the locals saying, who is this? Who is this? And the crowds were saying, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Now there's no doubt in coming into Jerusalem in this manner, Jesus was declaring himself to be the Messiah. That's why he got on the colt of a donkey, just as Zechariah had prophesied. And he was a prophet. They were correct in saying that, and he is forever our king. They were correct in saying that he's a king, but he was not the kind of king they were anticipating or the kind of king for which they hoped. They desired the restoration of the kingdom of David. They desired deliverance from the rule of Rome. Mark 11, 9. Those who went in front and those who followed. So we've got crowds in front of him and following him. We're shouting, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, sent by God. But then verse 10, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. They're looking for the restoration of David's kingdom. The crowds correctly proclaimed Jesus as coming in the name of Yahweh, as one sent to accomplish the purposes of Yahweh. And their acclamation of Jesus as Son of David rightly echoed the cry of the blind men in Jericho that Jesus is the Messiah. And now after three and a half years of public ministry, Jesus openly enters Jerusalem as the divinely prophesied Messiah King. But neither his kingship nor his kingdom is political or earthly, as those crowds mistakenly believed. Those crowds were in celebration, but they were also crowds in great confusion. The kingdom which they were proclaiming was a figment of their imagination. They wanted a provider of their material needs and desires. They wanted protection from the Romans. The daughter of Zion, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, did not recognize Him as who He truly is. And they did not understand the peace that He was about to accomplish that week. Brethren, they were celebrating something that existed only in their imagination. What about us? What kind of king do we desire? Do we want a political king as they did? Who will fix all our problems as they desired? Who will make our lives in this world more to our liking? Who will take a stand against our opponents and the sins of others? Or do we want a king? Do we desire a king? Do we seek a king who will save us from our own sins? We can worry about our own sins or we can worry about other people's sins. We fall into the same error when we look for any ruler, any earthly ruler to save us from what's wrong in the world. No man can do that. And Christ didn't come to do that. He didn't come to fix Babylon. He came to save us from our sins and from the consequence of our sins. And He did come to establish a kingdom. He's gone to prepare for us a glorious kingdom for those who are looking to Him. He did not object when they called Him king. Pharisees asked Him to tell them to stop it. But He didn't come to protect us against all unpleasantness in this life. And those who preach such a Jesus are in error. He came to Jerusalem not to sit on a throne but to die on a cross for our sins. He came to die and then He would be raised to His throne. A heavenly throne where He rules over all the universe. Not just some little piece of land in the Middle East. He came to conquer the wages of sin. He came to conquer death. And death will be the last enemy to be abolished. We have His word on it. So this is a great lesson for us. We're not free to create a Jesus of our own liking, as so many regrettably do, even in our churches today. People go around and say things like, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Life may be very difficult. is granted to us not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake, to share in His afflictions. That doesn't mean every moment's going to be misery, but we are not free to create a Jesus of our own liking. This was the tragic mistake of the crowds that day in Jerusalem. They created a Messiah of their own design. And that, folks, is idolatry. To create a Jesus of our own design is idolatry. So that day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, where He had come to give His life as a ransom for many in a humble manner. He came in a humble manner on the foal of a donkey. And so the Old Testament Word of God, spoken through the prophet, was fulfilled there. Now Luke and John both tell us about the others in the midst of the celebrating crowds. John 12, 19, So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are not doing any good. Look, the world has gone after him. And they're not making the mistake that the crowds made. They're making a whole other mistake. They hated Jesus, all of the Jewish religious leaders, almost without exception, as far as we can tell. And they resented this outpouring of praise and acclamation for Him as Messiah sent by God, as King of Israel. But in that moment, They didn't dare say, you people quiet down. No, no. They asked Jesus to do it for them. Luke writes, some of the Pharisees, verse 39, some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. Now look at Jesus' answer in verse 40. I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. The salvation of God's elect The reconciliation of his people to himself through the work of Christ, the mediator, was going to be accomplished that week. And there was nothing anyone or anything in the whole universe could do to stop it. The salvation of God's people in Christ had been determined and decreed in eternity past, and the enemies of God were powerless to do anything about it. In the fourth century, the Roman church turned this event where the Jews were celebrating something that was a figment of their imagination into a church holiday, a day to be celebrated. And sometimes people just follow the crowd. Many evangelical churches have followed the practice of the Roman church. But folks, this was not looked upon by Jesus as a day to be celebrated. In Jesus' eyes, it was one of the saddest days recorded in all of Scripture. Look at verse 41. When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it. He wept over it. Now, we've all got in our Bibles these little headings. These headings are not Scripture. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God in the original language. But these headings placed by the editors are not. In this account, one writer correctly states, is misnamed triumphal entry. Jesus seems to be at the height of His popularity. He's even acknowledged as Messiah, but only because they had a false idea of who He was. They weren't cheering the Jesus who truly is. And only five days later, some of these same people would demand that He be crucified. When they realized Jesus was not the kind of Messiah they had expected, many of them joined with their leaders and shouted, Crucify Him! And Jesus knew all this. He knows what's in men's hearts. He also knew what lay ahead for the nation of Israel, which had rejected Him. So when He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it. He's weeping. Because he knew that people were expecting a Messiah of their own imagination. He wept. The word rendered wept here means wept aloud, expressing uncontainable, audible grief. He was audibly weeping. He wept audibly as he lamented their lost opportunity and the judgment that was soon to come upon them and the whole nation before that generation passed away. And so as the city came into view, Jesus, fully realizing that most of the praise which He was receiving was shallow, and based on a total misunderstanding of who He was and why He had come and what He was about to accomplish, He broke out into loud weeping. He cries out, If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, But now they've been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade, a siege around you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side. And they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another. Because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. Jesus was deeply saddened. We have seen already in Luke's gospel the joy in heaven when even one sinner comes to repentance. But now look. at the grief when people refuse him. So he's deeply saddened by their inexcusable misunderstanding of who he was, of his role as Messiah, of his role as king, of his kingdom, of his purpose. And he wept as he thought of the judgment in store for Jerusalem for the great sin of rejecting him, as they had been for three and a half years. And as they would demonstrate when they sent him to a cross in just a few days. Before his eyes, he's seeing a vision of Jerusalem under siege, surrounded by the Roman legions and the destruction that they were about to He says here, not one stone left upon another. He will repeat it in Matthew 24 too. And the demolition that occurred in 70 A.D., the siege that began in 66 A.D., the demolition was complete. The Jewish first century historian Josephus was likely there. He was certainly nearby. And he wrote in the history of the Jewish wars. Chapter 6, section 271. This is just a small picture. I mean, he's not speaking of the cannibalism by women of their own children just to survive. He says here, while the sanctuary was burning, the temple, neither pity for age nor respect for rank was shown. On the contrary, children and old people, laity and priests alike, were massacred. Chapter 7, verse 1, The emperor ordered the entire city and the temple to be razed to the ground, leaving only the loftiest of the towers and a portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west. And it's still there. All the rest of the wall that surrounded the city was so completely razed to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no reason to believe the city had ever been inhabited. Now we know this 1,950 years later, but Jesus knew it 40 years before it happened. And He's looking at it. Now we see Him weeping two times at the ravages of sin, death, as Lazarus lay in the tomb. He knows He's going to raise him. He's going to live again. But He sees sin and death and what it has caused. And now He sees what unbelief caused. what lay in store for His own people who received Him not." The cause of this destruction? The Jews rejected Christ. They rejected the God who sent Christ, who delivered them from bondage in Egypt, who had sustained them through trial after trial after trial, who had returned to them after they had turned away from Him dozens of times. He didn't know, Jesus said, the things which make for peace. He was speaking, of course, of peace with God, of being restored to a right relationship with God. It was this that the people of Jerusalem had failed to realize. Everybody's got their eyes on what's going on in the world then and now. What matters is peace with God. and obedience to Him, a life that expresses that you believe everything He said. From the outset of Jesus' ministry, He was never talking about restoring that earthly kingdom. His emphasis was on men seeking forgiveness of their sins and eternal life through faith in Him. He had preached over and over and over again the necessity of repentance from sin, of living lives which demonstrate the love of God the love of the brethren, love of neighbor, and yes, love of our enemies. A heartfelt desire that they be restored to fellowship with God. The Jews were dull of hearing. Jesus said that. They were unwilling to listen. And so God's wrath would soon be poured out on the whole nation. Isaiah 57, 21. God had warned, there is no peace for the wicked. There's no peace for the wicked. And so as Jesus wept over the events of that day. And what they portended for the day of judgment on Israel to come. This event can hardly be viewed as a day to be celebrated by us. Israel had missed its day of visitation. Jesus wept over the events of that day. And what stands out in this passage is what a great crime against God it is to invent a Jesus of our own design. Folks, that is idolatry. That's what those crowds did. That's what the nation of Israel did. They invented a Messiah of their own imagination. They didn't seek and they did not want the Messiah that we read of in Isaiah 53. A suffering servant. One who would humbly submit to suffering and death. They wanted only their political power back. They weren't seeking a Messiah to save them from their sins. They were hoping for a Messiah to save them from the Romans. To make their nation a better place to live. They were seeking a Messiah who would make their earthly lives more pleasant. There are many such people today. even in our churches, with their eyes fixed on the things of this world, and not, as Abraham, on the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." Abraham went through trial after trial as well. He didn't live in wonderful times, but he kept his eyes on God. Jesus didn't come to fix the fallen world. though it was in His power to do so. Still is. But that's not His purpose. In His first coming, He did not fix the fallen world. That's not the mission He's given His church. But He has promised a new world, a new heaven, a new earth. And He accomplished those things for us that very same week. He calls us to look to and seek the heavenly Mount Zion. to seek His kingdom and His righteousness, to store up treasure in heaven, and to share the good news of forgiveness of sins in the world. That's the church's role in the world. Sons of Jacob failed to hear Him. People in Jerusalem that day did not receive Jesus as the one who would save them from that from which they most needed saving. Their sins. No one in this crowd, as far as the four gospel writers tell us, cried out, Jesus, forgive us. No, no. But He was the Messiah they so desperately needed that day. And He is the Messiah that the world so desperately needs today. And it's my prayer that we will hear Him and that the message that He brought will be taken by His people into the world and that it will be heard. Let us pray. Lord, Your Word is so filled with righteousness and power. By it we are taught, we are corrected from our erroneous thoughts. We are convicted of our sins. We are given the means by which we draw closer to you. By your gospel, we are saved because you've given it as the means of your grace. And yes, Lord, we do live in a fallen world. And yes, we see the rejection of you all around us. We see people seeking to invent a Christ of their own design, as they did that day in Jerusalem. The prophets were rejected over and over, but some heard. Your son was rejected, but some heard. And so, Lord, I pray that You would enable and empower us and embolden us that we would go into the world and, in sharing that same kind of rejection, would be heard. For Your kingdom and for Your glory, in Christ's name, amen.