Blessed is the King
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Imagine living in Judah during the late seventh and early sixth centuries BC. King Josiah was killed in battle against the King of Egypt, Neco. Though Neco sent word to Josiah that God had called him to go to war with the Assyrians against Babylon and Josiah needed to stay out of it, Josiah would not listen to God’s word and fought against Neco, being killed by an archer’s arrow. The Chronicler described his death in similar fashion to King Ahab—the evil king of the northern tribes—he had disguised himself so he would not be recognized as the king, he was shot by an archer in his chariot, and cried out to be taken from battle. The difference being that Josiah was able to get back to Jerusalem before dying.
His son, Jehoahaz was made king by Judah, and he did evil in God’s sight, so that Neco quickly deposed him and set up his brother Eliakim in his place, changing his name to Jehoiakim instead. Neco and the Assyrians lost their battle against Babylon and General Nebuchadnezzar. Soon Babylon was knocking at Jerusalem’s door. Jehoiakim was an evil king and was replaced by his brother Jehoiachin at the order of Nebuchadnezzar a few years later. Jehoiachin only lasted a little over three months before he also was replaced at the order of Nebuchadnezzar by another brother Zedekiah. It was Zedekiah who refused to listen to Jeremiah the prophet and mocked the prophets and led the Jews, including the priests to do the same thing. Listen to the words of the Chronicler as they will be important in a couple of weeks.
The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.
But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
After a few years, Nebuchadnezzar was back and finally had enough of Judah and Jerusalem. He captured the city, defiled the temple and took all its treasures back to Babylon, and then burned it along with the walls around Jerusalem and all the palaces. The king was carried off in chains.
So here we have five kings: Josiah who refused to listen to God at the end of his life, Jehoahaz was evil in God’s sight, Eliakim was evil in God’s sight, Jehoiachin was evil in God’s sight and Zedekiah was evil in God’s sight. In the midst of it all, Nebuchadnezzar had entered the gates of Jerusalem on his valiant horse and did as he pleased with the king, the people, and the property of Jerusalem.
After 70 years in exile, Cyrus let Israel return, but they had never had another king. Between 705 BC until Judea was destroyed in 70 AD, Israel only ruled itself for about one-hundred years but still without a king! Even King Herod was an appointed “king” by the Roman Emperor Augustus and he was Idumean (an Edomite—from the line of Esau), not Jewish!
So let’s think back at the kings Judah had dealt with over the past 700 years. Josiah, Jehoahaz, Eliakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius (who had Daniel thrown in the lion’s den), Cyrus, Darius the Great, Ahasuerus (Esther’s husband), Antiochus IV who desecrated the temple, and Herod the Great. By now Emperor Tiberius was over Rome. The people of Judea were desperate for a good king!
During Darius the Great’s reign a prophet by the name of Zechariah had prophesied that one would come eventually. And he gave a sign that they could recognize:
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 foal of a donkey.
Alluding all the way back to Jacob’s blessing on Judah in Genesis 49, he reminded the people that the king would be linked to a donkey and his scepter would never depart. And here is Jesus, and as we will see today, he is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Everything seems just right! But Jesus knew and had already explained by way of parable, that the kingdom would not come just yet.
So as we open up Luke 19 again, we see three scenes in this drama known as the Triumphal Entry. The first is the Readying Scene. The second is the Rejoicing Scene. Finally there is the Responding Scene.
Readying Scene
Rejoicing Scene
Responding Scene
And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples,
saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ ”
So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.
And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”
And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,
saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Readying Scene
Readying Scene
The first scene we see is the readying scene. Jesus and the crowds that had been making their way to Jerusalem for the Passover had gone through Jericho and were making their way ever closer to Jerusalem. And on the outskirts of the city were two towns: Bethany where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived, and Bethphage.
By the way the text reads, it is most likely that this scene was set up by Jesus himself. He had set things into motion long before this moment had come. He is sending two of his disciples into an appointed town to take an appointed donkey. That donkey, according to Luke and others, was a colt, a very young donkey, which would have been used for riding. Older donkeys would often be used as pack animals or for farming. Young donkeys, like this, would be used for riding. But this colt had not yet been ridden. The implication is that it was one that had done no work in the past which means that it is worthy of a sanctified task.
So we first see that Jesus readied his triumphal entry by sending the two disciples to attain the pre-appointed donkey. But then tells them that if someone objected, they only needed to say that the Lord needs it—which then indicates that the owners who would object would know exactly who the Lord is. If Jesus had arranged for this moment in time, he would have made sure that the owners would not have let anyone ride the donkey. It was set aside for this task, so not just anyone would be able to take the donkey. So most likely, the owners weren’t so much afraid that someone was stealing the donkey, but that it was going to the appropriate person: the Lord himself.
All of this being said, here is what I find interesting. We don’t know who the disciples were. We’re only told that two were selected, and this is in all three synoptic gospel accounts: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But none tell us who those disciples are. They were sent to a town called Bethphage, but we have no idea where this town is. We know where Bethany is. We know where the Mount of Olives is. But we have no idea were Bethphage is. On top of this, we have no idea who owned this donkey. We don’t know the objector. For as great of a historian as Luke was, he gives us very little details. And the reason is simply that these details are not really important.
When Jesus was sending his disciples away to get the donkey, he wasn’t just preparing himself to ride into Jerusalem, but was preparing an entire event that would steel the disciples and seal the destiny of Jerusalem itself.
Brothers and sisters, we need to remember that Jesus will often use unknown places, unknown people, and unknown circumstances in our lives to prepare us for what is ahead. He works in seemingly innocuous ways at times that suddenly have major impacts on the world or society or even an individual. Think about the ram caught in the thicket as Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. Think about the selling of Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Think about Samson’s being blinded and imprisoned only to be placed between two pillars that the house rested upon or the plant that shaded Jonah in the heat. I could go on but God does not change. There are situations in your life, people in your life, even animals and plants in your life that God could be using providentially to bring about his purposes.
Just as God the Son had put into place a particular donkey in a particular place for a particular situation, so God the Father puts people, places, things, and events and sets them in motion to do what he has ordained. It’s called providence. John Piper defines providence as, “the act of purposefully providing for, or sustaining and governing, the world.” (Providence, 30).
Spurgeon said, “Providence says, Whatever God ordains must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. . . The doctrine of Providence is not: what is, must be; but that what is works together for the good of our race, and especially for the good of the chosen people of God.” (Providence, 36).
At this moment, this very scene that we are playing a part in, as you sit in those pews and as I preach this message, God is readying us for some future scene. We don’t know how; we don’t know when. But we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
Rejoicing Scene
Rejoicing Scene
This takes us to the second scene. Scene 1: the readying scene fades out and the second scene, the rejoicing scene begins. In this scene, Jesus is mounted upon the colt and is led to Jerusalem, which is about a mile away.
I want us to notice something about this scene though. Look carefully at who is rejoicing.
And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,
saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
They spread their cloaks. Who is they? The disciples. As he was drawing near, who was that was rejoicing and praising God with a loud voice? The multitude of his disciples. Who is it that says, “Blessed is the King”? Those same disciples.
I think that we often have this picture that all of Jerusalem is rejoicing to see Jesus coming on the colt. That’s not true. Those who were with Jesus as he was heading to Jerusalem—probably the moms and dads who had brought their children, certainly the crowd that sought to stop blind Bartimaeus and the crowd that was angry about Zaccheus, as well as Bartimaeus and Zaccheus were the ones spreading their coats, and as Matthew pointed out, waving the palm branches. They were the ones singing “Blessed is the King!” They were the ones rejoicing. It was not all of Jerusalem. It was a large crowd, but not nearly the size that many would think. If it was 1,000 people, that would have been pretty massive, but only 1% of those who would have been in Jerusalem for the Passover.
But something else is important. Notice the words that they sang. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
If we aren’t careful, we miss the beauty of these words. For one, Luke is the only writer to show that the the word King was used. The people quote Psalm 118, but at some point turn “he” into “the King.” But beyond that, look at that last sentence. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest? You may hear those words and feel that you’ve heard those words somewhere before, but you can’t put your finger on it. That is probably because the words are a bit out of order and one word is changed. But they are so similar that it cannot be a coincidence.
Let’s go back to
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The crowd, having seen all the wonders of Jesus, believing that he is the Messiah—the very Christ of God, the King of the Jews, begin to rejoice by echoing back what the angels had said to the shepherds who watched their flock by night. Except rather than saying that there was peace on earth, they actually stated that there was peace in heaven.
If we stopped to read Zechariah 9:10, which we will do in a moment, we would see that peace was to be on earth, just as the angels had stated. But the disciples sang that peace was in heaven.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
In fact, as we’ll see next week, Jesus wept over Jerusalem as they would not have the peace he was offering, but God in his providence spoke truth through an unsuspecting people. Because the King would be providing peace in heaven.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, earlier I quoted Romans 8:28, and reminded you that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. But the same cannot be said for those who oppose God—for those who oppose his Son.
Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah, the King, denies the Father as well. One cannot say he believes in God and not believe in Jesus as the Christ. So for those who believe, there is peace, but for those who do not, there is enmity. It is not simply that the denier is wrong or in some celestial doghouse. John tells us this person is the antichrist! The spirit of the antichrist is upon this person. This is pure enmity with God.
Responding Scene
Responding Scene
And that takes us to the last scene: the responding scene. Because the response was, in effect, a denial that Jesus was the Christ.
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
To the Pharisees, this time of rejoicing may have looked silly, maybe even blasphemous, but more importantly, it looked dangerous. Remember last week how I mentioned that Herod’s son, Archelaus had killed many of the Jews. Remember that those Jews numbered in the thousands—3,000 as a matter of fact. And it was on Passover and it was at the temple. Here is Jesus, riding in on a donkey—making a brazen statement of his being the King. The multitudinous crowd was singing and shouting that the king had come as they were drawing ever near the temple at Passover time. Can you see why the Pharisees would see this as dangerous? Sure Archelaus was in exile, but Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and he was known to kill on a whim as well. He had already killed some Galileans as we saw in Luke 13, but he was also known to have beaten and killed many Jews after he had taken money from the temple to install a new aqueduct in Jerusalem.
But whatever their reasoning, wanting peace in Jerusalem and with Pilate (rather than peace in heaven with God) or just simply didn’t believe Jesus to be the Christ in the first place, some of the Pharisees tried to silence Jesus’s disciples. They tell Jesus to rebuke his disciples. We don’t use the word rebuke too often these days, but it simply means to correct; it can be gentle or harsh, but it is a correction of a falsehood. So when the Pharisees tell Jesus to rebuke them, they are indicating that they believe his disciples are wrong to praise God for the King that has come!
And to this response, Jesus responded:
He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
It is wondered, which stones? The stones on the ground? I think Jesus tells us in just a few verses. In Luke 19:44, in referencing the temple, Jesus said that not one stone would be left upon the other. We’ll get into it more next week, but the king had been rejected, the kingdom had been rejected, and so the palace—the temple—would be destroyed as a cry and testimony against the Jewish people.
If the people had stopped their proclamation that the King had come, the very stones of his palace would cry out.
Beloved, there is no more temple. It happened just as Jesus said. It was destroyed and not one stone was left atop another. But you know, that’s okay. Because there is a new temple and Jesus is its cornerstone. And I want you to hear what Peter says about it.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
You and me, we are now the stones that cry out in praise. We are now the priesthood, the nation, the people, who proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We are those stones that cry out in praise…aren’t we? Aren’t we?
Brothers and sisters, we have been silenced and we have been rebuked. But not by Jesus, but by the world. And many disciples have closed their mouths of praise in the public square, and many stones have ceased to pick up the chorus saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” We have fallen silent. We have been greatly affected by the response of those who carry the spirit of the antichrist—those who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ.
But we do not receive our orders from them. We receive our orders from King Jesus.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish this portion of Luke, we’ve seen this drama of redemption played out in three scenes this morning. The first was the readying scene. We got a glimpse into Jesus’s planning and orchestrating an event that would steel the disciples and seal the destiny of Jerusalem. We saw the rejoicing scene and how only those who actually believed Jesus to be the King were singing his praises, and echoing back the angels’ song. And we saw the response of those who rejected Jesus’s kingship, and Jesus’s response to them.
And now we have choices to make. For those who may be here and have yet to put your trust in Jesus, you must decide if Jesus is King. Is he the Christ, the Lord of glory or isn’t he? To trust that he is and to trust in the work he did on the cross and resurrection means that you have the Spirit of Christ within you. But to reject it is to show the spirit of the antichrist within you.
Others here who have received Christ must chose whether or not they will be as bold as the disciples walking into Jerusalem. Certainly they knew the stories of Archelaus and Pilate, yet the laid their coat on the ground, ripped palm leaves from the trees, and sang for all to hear, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” That could have been their last day on earth if Pilate had been in ear shot. But they believed Jesus was the King and they would not take orders from those who did not. But will we?
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
I pray for those who do not know your Son, those who have not believed on him and trusted him as King of their lives. May today you fill them with your Holy Spirit and expel the spirit of the antichrist from them. May they be granted repentance and be given faith and grace as a gift so that they too may be saved from the day of judgment.
May we, as believers, be unashamed and unafraid of singing and testifying about our King. Grant us the opportunities to do so, and grant us the eyes to see those opportunities this week.
In Jesus’s name, we ask this. Amen.