Our True King

Well, open the scripture, would you, to Luke chapter 19.

! So, Luke 19, 28 to 44.

So, let me go ahead and read our passage, and then we'll work our way through it. When he had said this, referring, of course, to the previous passage, he said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

And it came to pass, when he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a cold tide, on which no one has ever sat.

Loose it, and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, Why are you loosing it? Thus you shall say to him, Because the Lord has need of it.

So those who were sent went their way, and found it just as he had said to them. But as they were loosing the cold, the owners of it said to them, Why are you loosing the cold?

And they said, The Lord has need of it, or need of him. Then they brought him to Jesus, and they threw their own clothes on the cold, and they set Jesus on him.

And as he went, many spread their clothes on the road. Then as he was now drawing near to the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven, glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, saying, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

But he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones should immediately cry out. And as he drew near, he saw the city, wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, now they are hidden from your eyes.

For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground.

And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. Now we'll stop right there and take this passage for this morning.

And it is a, I would say, I think you would agree with me, a famous part of the story of Jesus, what we would call the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And Luke includes that in his gospel, as does Matthew and Mark. And so it's part of the story that is thrilling and exciting, and yet it is filled with some interesting aspects.

And especially if you will just in your thoughts think ahead to what is going to be coming from the crowds, really, actually within about a week of this event.

Different things are going to be said, and different types of reactions are going to be given to Jesus. But here at this moment, it's all praise, and all worship, and all of them shouting at the top of their lungs, blessed is the King who comes.

And so it all seems so good, and all seems so right, and exciting, and the people are excited, and they're accepting Jesus. And it's just great, even though, again, in our minds, we remember, if we know the scriptures, and I'm sure you do, how the story is going to turn in a different direction, really, actually by the end of this, or near the end of this very week.

And it got me to thinking, you know, when it comes to the whole issue of salvation, talking about, you know, being saved, and following, trusting Jesus, following Jesus.

When it comes to that, over the years of my ministry, I have known some people who have, quote, prayed the prayer, walked the aisle, you know, joined the church.

Church, baptized, and all of that, gone through all of that, only to eventually fall away from the faith. You ever know anybody like that?

If you've been in church life very long, then you have. You've seen that happen. You see someone coming, and they're presented before the church, and maybe even baptized. And then, you know, they continue to come for a while, maybe a week, or two, or maybe several months, maybe even over a year.

And then suddenly, they're gone. And to your sadness, you discover that they really have just kind of gone back to their old way of life. And it's a kind of perplexing thing, you know, how this happens.

And we wonder, you know, how does that happen, and why does that happen? Where they seem to be so interested, and seem to be so hungry, you know, for the Bible, and for the Lord Jesus, and like to talk about Him, and so excited in the worship services, and even to some extent getting involved in the work of the church, it seemed.

And it just seemed like they were just really in there, and hungry, and so serious. And then, they fall away. But what happened? What happened in those cases?

And why do some seemingly fall away from the faith? And I put it in those words. Because obviously, no one really falls from the faith if it is true faith.

And so the obvious answer to the question is, whatever faith they had in Jesus, it wasn't true saving faith. And Adrian Rogers used to say, and one of my favorite things he used to say, he said, the faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first.

He tried to say that really fast a few times. And that's really the answer, I guess, the big answer. And I really believe that.

I mean, the Bible does clearly teach that, that true faith endures. True faith is not something here and then gone. True faith, which leads to salvation, is forever.

It is eternal. It's not something you fall away from, or fall back from. Or you can, obviously, sin, and God will chastise you, and there may be those seasons.

But you never, ever really leave Jesus, or fall away from Jesus, if you have true faith. And so that really is, perhaps, the larger answer to the question.

But perhaps the real question is, what did they really believe in? I mean, if you want to analyze it a little bit deeper, and get a little bit closer to the real reason why some will come and then seemingly fall away, and some come and are very excited for a time, and then they fall away, the Bible certainly addresses that issue.

But the real question is, what did they believe in to begin with? What was their faith based upon, if it was not real?

See, that's the real issue here. So let me tell you, I think, why some embrace the faith, and then sooner or later fall away. And why some seem to be all excited about the faith, and then they kind of defect, you know, kind of a spiritual defection.

I think it is, at least, two false assumptions about Jesus. Some people have false assumptions about Jesus when they began their so-called journey of faith.

And there are at least two, two big ones, two main ones. And let me give them to you, and then we'll tie this into the passage that I read a moment ago. Number one, they see biblical truth concerning Jesus as something that is personal, and therefore subjective.

As opposed to something that is absolute, and therefore objective. And what I mean is simply this, they evaluate truth according to the practical benefit that it may bring them.

You understand what I'm saying? It's what's in it for me, and so if it works for me, then it must be true. And that's a mentality that's quite prevalent, especially in our culture today.

If it works, you know, then it must be right, it must be true. And that's kind of a personal approach. The personal benefit. And so it's very subjective.

Or they evaluate truth according to personal benefit. You know, what is in it for me? If it feels right, if it feels right, then it must be true.

And so the test for spiritual truth is whether it works and how I feel about it on the inside. And so if at some point Jesus doesn't, you know, following Jesus doesn't work for them, then they go find something else to follow.

In hopes that maybe it will work for them as they conceive of it. See, it's very subjective. Or if at some point their feelings about Christ and feelings about Christianity and so forth, if those feelings kind of begin to change and they begin to feel better about some other truth claim that is out there, and there are many, many other truth claims that people could hold on to and believe.

If that happens, then they defect. They defect. It happens all the time. Because, you see, the truth is defined in personal terms. Personal terms and therefore it is subjective.

It's left up to each individual, how that individual evaluates it and so forth. There's another false assumption. And it is the belief that personal happiness is what matters most.

It's the most important thing in life. Personal happiness, personal fulfillment, or whatever, however you want to define it. And so if the God of the Bible or if the Jesus of the Bible is real, then He exists to make my life better.

This is a mentality that if He's real, then He exists solely to make me happy. And so if Jesus can make my life happy and good and blessed, then I'll give Him a try.

But the first time He messes up, I'm going to move on to something else. You understand what I'm saying? And so if following Jesus doesn't make me feel good, or if it doesn't make my life better, in fact, if it makes my life harder, then I'm going to try something else or someone else, because life is hard enough as it is.

You understand the thinking, the mentality, and it's pretty easy to understand how a person could come and approach the gospel, to approach the claims of Christ, with that kind of preconceived notion.

And so it's very subjective, isn't it? And it's based upon the idea that man's happiness is more important than God's glory.

That man's personal expectations, rather than God's divine purpose and plan, that's what's most important in life.

And that's a philosophy that many people have. It's a false assumption about Jesus. All right, now, having said all that, what does that have to do with our text this morning? Well, our text gives us a brief description, again, of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, all right?

And what we have here is the beginning of the end for Jesus. That is, the end of his life here on planet Earth for now. He has one week left after he enters into Jerusalem, makes his triumphal entry.

One week is all this left. And so as he draws near to Jerusalem, the city is full of excitement. And not just the city of Jerusalem, but many of the surrounding villages and towns, like Bethany and Bethage and those that are mentioned and others.

People living out in the countryside. The whole area is full of excitement. And so the reaction of the people seems to be, you know, very positive, doesn't it? I mean, you can look at this story, and just take this story, and actually have to leave off the last few verses of it.

Then you would evaluate it this way. This is very positive. I mean, finally Jesus is coming to his own here. And they are receiving him, and they're excited about him coming, and they're praising him, and lauding him as their true king, and so forth.

And that seems to be the way the story goes. I mean, they are lining up along the roadway, and we can assume that it continued that way on in to Jerusalem.

And they're out there shouting, Blessed is the king who comes. I mean, the excitement is really high, isn't it? And anticipation is very, very high.

And yet, because you know the rest of the story, in less than a week, one of Jesus' disciples will betray him. I'm talking about one that followed him all throughout his earthly ministry, will betray him.

That would be Judas, of course. Another of his disciples will deny even knowing him. That, of course, was Peter, right? And really, all but one of his disciples scatter.

They abandon him, effectively. And the crowd, what are they shouting? Crucify. Quite a different story, isn't it?

In less than a week, from the excitement of the king has come to away with this guy. Crucify him.

All right, so what happened? What happened? Why the defection? I think it's a pretty good question. And I think the answer, again, is all because these various people had false assumptions.

False assumptions concerning Jesus. And by and large, most of them had been following Jesus. Following him. Supporting him. Lauding him.

Praising him. Here at this moment. They were doing so only for what they thought he would do for them. Namely, that he would come in to Jerusalem and kick the Romans out.

Be their king and be their leader. Establish his kingdom. You know all of that because we've covered that a number of times. This was their expectation. And so they were praising him and accepting him and their expectations were high because of what they wanted.

what they wanted from him. And so when he did not live up to their expectations, what did they do? They abandoned him. And worse than that, they made sure he was crucified.

And they fell away from the faith in sins. When things did not go as they had hoped. And I would say to you that seasonal followers of Jesus, that's what I'd like to call them.

Seasonal followers of Jesus as they just follow him for a season in their lives. In their life. Seasonal followers are still doing that today. And so here's the problem.

They fail or they refuse to see Jesus as the king. He really is. They have false assumptions on the one side.

And the most egregious thing is they absolutely, totally fail to see him as king. They see him in many other ways. But they fail to see him as the real king that he is God's true king.

And so, therefore, it's never about what he can do for us. It's what we must do in response to him as king. He is our true king.

So this great story, this exciting story, thrilling story, not only helps us to have the, I guess, the right conception of who Jesus really is, but more importantly, because we have the right conception and view of who Jesus really is as king, then we understand how we should respond to him.

And it's interesting in the story that we can get a number of implications about it, a number of applications about it. We can just kind of glean some of the things that happen in the story and apply those to how we should respond to our king in a genuine way, in a real way.

And so, here it is. He is our true king. And so, first of all, give your king, your true king, what he desires.

That's the first thing. Give your true king what he desires. Alright? If he is your king, I hope he is. If he's King Jesus in your life.

And if he is, then give your king what he desires. Now, what does King Jesus desire? Well, from the story, I think we can draw a number of implications. So, let's just kind of walk through the story and find them.

Verse 28 again. When he had said this, and again, this is just a reference to the parable that he told in the previous passage, and we covered all of that last week. When he had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem.

Remember, they're at Jericho or going through Jericho. Jericho, and so they're only about maybe at the very most 17, 18 miles from Jerusalem.

So, they're getting very close. And so, Jesus has a great throng of people following him. His disciples are following him, not just his 12, but all of those who claim to be his disciples, some true, some false.

And they're following him, and so, he told this parable, and he, you know, and we talked about that last week, and now, he goes on ahead. And I think it's just kind of an indicator from Luke that Jesus is very eager to get to Jerusalem.

Earlier on, he said that he set his face toward Jerusalem. He was determined to get there, and so he kind of goes on ahead, and now they're going to follow him, but he's on his way to Jerusalem.

And so, verse 28 says, and it came to pass, when he came near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet. All right, so here, a couple of villages, small towns, very near, we would call them maybe suburbs of Jerusalem, Bethphage and Bethany, just a few miles from Jerusalem, and specifically at a place called the Mount of Olives.

All right, so that's where they are. And according to Luke's narration, they're going on to Jerusalem. Now, here is where in the story that we have a bit of a gap in Luke's telling of the story, and I just kind of mentioned this to you.

You have to go to John, John chapter 12, and find out that Jesus actually spent six more days there in this area, Bethany specifically, and before going on into Jerusalem during this triumphal entry, just a couple of miles from Jerusalem.

He had dinner at the home of Simon the leper. He spent time with his dear friends Mary, Martha, and the risen Lazarus, and a number of other things.

And so Luke leaves all of that out of the narrative and gets right to the triumphal entry. And so verse 19, at the mountain called Olivet, now here's where I want you to pay close attention, He sent two of His disciples saying, go.

Now stop right there. He sent two of His disciples saying, go. Now here is the first implication of what your true King desires.

And it is this, your true King desires disciples who are willing to be sent. Willing to be sent. He sent two of His disciples saying, go.

He wants disciples who are willing to be sent. Now let me add the second implication and then we'll put this together and comment on it. Second, your true King desires disciples who are willing to serve.

Willing to serve. Willing to be sent. Willing to serve. Those two things that we can glean from the story. Verse 2, verse 32, so those who were sent, what?

Went. They went. Do you see? Verse 29, Jesus sent His disciples saying, go. Verse 32, so those who were sent went.

Willing to be sent, willing to serve, that's what your King desires. Your true King. And let me just add a few important things about this. In the first place, when your King sends you, it is always to serve His divine purposes.

Now when I say sent, I don't mean you've got to go to China to do this. and if God leads you and calls you to be a part of that ministry of our church, then wonderful.

Praise the Lord. When I say sent, I don't mean that you have to go out of here or away from here. Sent just simply means or speaks to the issue of serving Him.

He sends you to do a certain task. Whether it's right here in our church or something beyond our church or even something unrelated to the church, maybe in the family, but He sends you to do something and when He sends you, He sends you to serve His divine purpose.

The purpose. His purpose. The Lord has need of you. He has need of you to serve Him. And that's true even if the task seems unimportant.

You know, we can't help ourselves because of who we are and how we're made that we kind of put things on a certain level of importance when it comes to serving the Lord.

You know, there are the great things that people can do and then there are the little menial things and you know, I'm kind of tired of doing the menial things. It's not important anyway. In fact, I can't even see the benefit of it.

Sometimes we think that way. You see, it doesn't really matter what the job is. It doesn't even matter whether it's something seemingly menial or unimportant. And it doesn't really matter whether or not we see the purpose of it.

He sends us to serve His divine purpose. Let me just take this example here. He said to His disciples, Go into the village. It's probably Bethphage, I would imagine.

Go into the village, find a colt tied, loose it, and bring it here. The Lord has need of it. And that's it. Big, big deal.

Big task. At least, you know, if we're trying to think from the perspective of His disciples, I mean, so was. What's the big deal about this?

I mean, just a little task to do and I don't even see the importance of it and so forth. But you see, really, don't ever think that your service of the Lord is unimportant or insignificant or maybe even a wasted effort because you don't see its real purpose or you don't even see any fruit from it or even sometimes even acceptance of it.

You don't even hear any praise from anybody else. You don't even know if anybody notices that you're doing what God has sent you to do. See, none of that really matters, does it? None of that matters.

Jesus, you see, did not tell His disciples why. At least, we're not given that in the text. We're not told why. Now, maybe they could come to some assumptions, you know.

Well, He needs to write on it, you know, obviously. He doesn't tell them why. He just said go and they just went. And that really is enough or should be.

Now, there's a second thing that I would say about this and this is really kind of amazing when you think about it. When your king sends you, it is always to serve His divine plan.

A divine plan that is always bigger than the moment or bigger than anything that we might be able to see with our kind of tunnel vision, our finite minds.

When the king sends you, it is always to serve His divine plan and it's, you see, all of this was part of a pre-ordained, pre-arranged plan.

I mean, we get that from the passage. Look at it. In verse 30, go into the village. This is what Jesus said to His disciples. Go into the village opposite you where as you enter you will find a colt tied.

Now, how did Jesus know that? We have nothing in the passage or even in some of the parallel passages to suggest that Jesus had already gone and arranged this thing so that, you know, they could find this colt.

Well, he just knew it. It was part of the plan. And we can read on. You will find a colt tied, he said, on which no one has ever sat.

Now, how did he know that? I mean, think about it. Not only that, but how probable is it, by the way, that there could be a colt old enough to carry Jesus on its back and yet no one has ever before sat on its back.

How probable is it that they could find a colt like that? See, but let's look further. Verse 31, and if anyone asks you, why are you loosing it?

Thus, you shall say to him, because the Lord has need of it. And then, verse 32, so those who were sent went their way and what? Found it just as he said.

In the exact way that he said. It's amazing. Now, you may think this is trivial, but this is important because it fits into the whole amazing prophetic nature of this particular event that's taking place here in the life of Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus knew every detail down, even down to the owners of the colt asking, why are you loosing the colt?

He even knew that ahead of time, didn't he? How did he know that? Well, he's God, right? I mean, that's our first answer. That's kind of the default answer.

But it's true. I mean, it's a true enough answer. He's God, he knows all things, and maybe that's just all there is to it. Or maybe there could be more to it.

Because, see, there is an implication here. That when the king sends you, it is always to serve his divine plan.

In fact, it is a plan that was formed before you were born. In fact, we could say accurately from Scripture, before the foundation of the world.

In terms of his eternal plan. In Matthew's account of this same event, Matthew chapter 21, Matthew writes about this deal with the cult and everything.

He says, this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Now, Matthew always did that. That's one of the great values of the gospel of Matthew. Matthew always tied every event to prophecy.

to the fulfillment of Scripture. And so he does that here. And then he quotes Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9, or at least he quotes a portion of it, but I want to quote the entire passage directly from the prophet.

And here's what it says. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just blessed and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.

That's the prophecy. All right, so what's the idea here? Did Jesus' disciples, the ones he sent, did they know that their simple service, this little simple task that Jesus sent them to do, did they know that this was part of God's big plan, divine plan.

Now they may have known the prophecy, I don't know that they could have necessarily connected the two or did connect the two, but did they understand the full thing? No, I don't think they did, but they went and served the Lord.

And so it begs the question when it comes to the things that God has sent us to do, each of us, by the way, he has sent every single one of us to do something in his kingdom.

You better find out what it is if you haven't yet, get to it, get to it, you'll never be sorry for that, but it begs a question for us, do we know this divine plan concerning our service?

Well, we should, we should, we have the scripture that tells us, and I think probably the disciples, these disciples later as Jesus is making his triumphal entry, then it all connected.

And for all of us, every little thing that we have done, one day it'll all come together in our minds. We'll see how it all fit in God's huge, sovereign, divine plan.

And so we should know that about everything that we are doing for the Lord. So give your king, your true king, what he desires. He desires disciples who are willing to be sent, disciples who are willing to serve.

And then second, give your king what he deserves. What he deserves, and this even becomes more personal.

We can understand what he deserves from several implications in the story. The first one is really very obvious. your true king deserves your possessions.

He gave them to you anyway, right? No, those are mine. No, they're not. They're his. But he wants us to give our possessions the possessions he's given us to him.

And we have that here in the story. Possessions. In fact, there were three gifts, we could say, that were given to Jesus here in our story.

There was, first of all, the colt, right? The colt, the foal of a donkey, how the prophet put it. Now, you know, to the owners of the colt, and it's plural, so a couple people owned them, maybe it was a man and wife, we don't really know.

To the owners of the colt, the fact that the Lord had need of the colt, apparently was enough for that. We don't have anything to tell us otherwise. I mean, they did ask a question, right?

Why are you loosing the colt? I mean, that was a kind of a question for clarity. But it was not a, there was no objection, nothing mentioned in the passage. And so the implication is, it's yours, Lord, for your use.

You have need of it, it's yours. And by the way, let me just interject this a moment. There's another lesson here about this colt and the giving of it.

Can you imagine what it would be like to attempt to ride on the back of a young colt that had never before had anybody sit on it? Can you imagine that? I mean, it'd take you for a ride, I'm pretty sure, a short one.

You'd be off on the ground. And yet, what do we understand from the passage? Well, Jesus didn't have any trouble.

He had a perfect, peaceful ride on the back of a young colt that had never been ridden before. I heard about a Sunday school teacher who was teaching this story to her four-year-olds and she asked the question, why do you think the colt didn't buck Jesus off and then run away?

And the little girl raised her hand and she said, oh, that's easy teacher because the donkey knew it was Jesus. Isn't that precious? And isn't it true?

And here is the, I think, the lesson for us in the giving of the colt here. The gifts that we give to the Lord are possessions, be it tangible possessions, money, other things, or other possessions that are just a part of us that we give to Him, our voices, our hands, our feet, our minds, our eyes, whatever it may be.

The gifts that we give to Jesus are pretty rough. I mean, really? Unrefined, limited, weak, often, and yet, in the hands of Jesus, they become perfect, useful.

The Lord has need of it. So, he gave the colt and then there was the gift of the clothes. The clothes.

Verse 35, and they threw their own clothes on the colt, kind of make a saddle for Jesus, and they set Jesus on him. And as he went, many spread their clothes on the road.

Spread him out on the road, and the donkey would walk on top of him, of course. And we can see the picture, we understand how this worked. And by the way, these would have been their outer garments.

In fact, some translations use the word cloak. Cloak. That would be the outer garment. And by the way, the most expensive part of any person's wardrobe.

And considering the particular occasion, they're welcoming the king, the messiah. I think most of them would have been dressed out in the best of their clothing.

And according to 2 Kings 9, verse 13, this was to signify the presence of royalty. I mean, this very thing was done back in that day.

And we can assume was a very common thing. It was a response to royalty. And so the people were just giving Jesus the honor that was due him reserved for a king.

Because he is the king. Essentially kind of putting out the red carpet for the king. And really, our gifts, the gifts of our possessions.

Whatever it is, again, tangible intent. Our testimonies to his kingship in our life. We give them to him and give our best to him and we give without any reservation for his use because he is our king.

And it reveals our belief about him. We know him as king of our lives. There is a third gift that was given, though Luke doesn't mention it, but I want to include it here, and that is the palm branches.

Because we know the story so well, we kind of put all the narrations together and we remember the palm branches. We are also laid down, some probably even waving them. Matthew says in Matthew 21.8, And a great multitude spread their clothes on the road.

Others cut down branches from the trees, the word means palms, and spread them on the road. Mark, in his account, tells us they actually cut them out of the fields and went out and gathered them from the field.

These palm branches. And palm branches represented a number of things. In the first place, it was a very common way in this culture, in the culture of the world of that day.

It was common to use palm branches to lay them down on the road as well as wave them to welcome home the king from a victorious battle.

And so they would do that. They would be praising him and they would use the palm branches to welcome him home. Palm branches were also a symbol of joy and rejoicing, especially the waving of them.

It was just kind of an act of rejoicing. And also, and this is interesting, palm branches were also placed on graves. A symbol, to be a symbol of eternal life.

Because palm branches were a symbol of life. Because in the desert places, the presence of a palm tree revealed what? Water. Life-sustaining, life-giving water.

And so the palm branch was a symbol of life. eternal life. So we just kind of use that as an implication here and apply that to our gifts, the giving of ourselves and our possessions.

Because in the giving of our possessions, we're revealing Jesus as our victorious king. Again, as I've said. But also, we're revealing him as the giver of joy and the giver of life.

And think about that the next time you hear a Sunday school teacher, you're preparing your Sunday school lesson and you don't have a lot of time and for whatever reason it's become kind of a chore and you're not sure if anybody's going to show up on Sunday or not or maybe, you know.

But think about what it reveals, what you are speaking. You're giving of your time, you're giving of your gifts grace that God has given you.

You're giving of yourself and revealing that Jesus is your king. True king. That he is the author of joy and the author of life.

It makes our service of him just a little bit, maybe a lot more than a little bit sweeter. So our true king, what does he desire? Your possessions.

also, your true king deserves your praise. And we see that clearly in the passage as well. Verse 37, then, as he was now drawing near to the descent of the Mount of Olives, meaning the great city of Jerusalem was now about to come in view.

So the whole picture is now being set. We can just kind of imagine the artist's brush portraying this whole scene.

It's a prophetic scene. There's Jesus and he's on the back of a colt, just as the prophet said, and walking upon a carpet of clothes and branches and the people are lining the streets and just over the hill as they come up over the rise, there is the city of Jerusalem.

And so the whole picture is there. And so it's no wonder then that as the Bible says here, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice. I mean, the whole scene is, the whole picture has come together.

Jesus, he's the Messiah, he's coming in on a colt, coming into Jerusalem, the historic city of David. And it all comes together and they're praising and rejoicing God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they have seen.

actually, the New American Standard uses the word miracles here, but it's really the Greek word dunamis. And you may have heard of this word before, from which we get our word dynamite and dynamic and so forth.

Dunamis means power. They're praising him for all the power, the power that Jesus exhibited and put on display in his ministry.

And certainly that would include the miracles of Jesus. So they're praising him for his power. And so today what? We praise the Lord for his power.

He deserves it. He's all powerful. We praise him for his power in creation. I mean, have you done that lately? We just go out on a night and look up into the sky and see the stars and consider the beauty of his creation and the awesomeness of his creation.

We praise him for his power in creation. We praise him for his power in revelation. Think of the power of God that revealed his word in this book.

Great power. And has preserved his word over the centuries and millennia. We praise him for his revelation, the power in revelation.

We praise him certainly for his power in salvation. Right? And for eternity, by the way, we're going to be praising him for his power in consummation as he's brought all of this together to its consummation, its fruition, and we shall be with him forever and ever.

So your king, your true king, deserves your possessions. He deserves your praise. And I would add one other one here, and then we'll move on to the third main point. Your true king deserves your prophetic voice.

Your prophetic voice. Now what does that mean? Well, look, the people here declared something outwardly, openly, verbally. In fact, they shouted it.

I would imagine at the top of their lungs. They declared openly the truth about the king of glory, the Lord Jesus.

Verse 37, and the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works, the power they had seen, saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the high. And you see, this is a clear declaration. With no qualms, no embarrassment, no fear.

They are just shouting it at the top of their lungs so that the mountains could hear that here is Jesus. He is our Messiah. That's what they were shouting and declaring and proclaiming.

Now, our country, I mean, our world certainly, but let's bring it home. Our country today needs now more than ever a clear prophetic voice.

Not just in the pulpits. We need it there too. It's sorely lacking in many pulpits, not only in our country, but even in our own community. This world, our world, our country needs a prophetic voice, but also out there where you live, work, play, shop.

We need a clear prophetic voice. And what I mean is one that is declaring unapologetically that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is king.

He's king Jesus. He's Lord Jesus. And all must repent and turn to him and bow before him. And I guess if we won't do it, somebody will.

Or something will. What did Jesus say? He said, if these people should keep silent, the stones will cry out. Psalm 19.1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God.

The sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day after day, they continue to speak. Night after night, they make him known. Their voice goes out into all the earth.

Their words to the ends of the world. Romans 1.20 For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, created, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Unbelievers are without excuse. So give your true king what he desires. Disciples who are willing to be sent, willing to serve. Give your true king what he deserves.

Your possessions, your praise, your prophetic voice proclaiming the truth of his person and the truth of his work. And then finally, give your king what he demands.

And to put it simply, your king demands your faith. He demands your faith. You know, think about it.

He certainly desires it, doesn't he? He desires your faith. In fact, in verse 41, we can kind of see this as he drew near, as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem.

It's in full view and he sees it. He saw the city and what did he do? He wept. He wept over it. Why don't you talk about shed a few tears?

The word here suggests that it was an uncontrollable sobbing and weeping. And he said this, he said, if you had known, he's speaking to the city of Jerusalem, but it's representative of Israel.

If you had known, even you, especially in this, your day, this was their day, their Messiah had come. If you knew, even in this day, the things that make for your peace, if you just known that.

He's weeping because they didn't know it. They didn't see it. If you had known the things that make for your peace, and the peace he's talking about there is not military peace.

That was the only kind of peace they were looking for. Not national peace, political peace, or anything like that. It was peace with God. That's what he's talking about. And the things that make for your peace, what are they?

Repentance, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. See, Jesus deeply desires your faith.

Deeply desires it. He wept bitterly over Israel. Bitterly over them because of their refusal to believe in him. And we can say that he most certainly deserves it.

He deserves your faith. because of all that he has done for you. He deserves it. But more than all of that, this is something that's quite often left out of the gospel presentation.

He demands it. He demands your faith. The gospel is a command. It's not a suggestion. It's a command to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

He demands your faith. And he's King Jesus. Right? God's true king. And it is a serious thing to refuse God's true king.

Just ask Israel. They refused. Verse 42 says, but now, Jesus says, now they, that is, the things that make for peace, now they are hidden from your eyes.

This is sad. This is disturbing. Hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an encampment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side.

That is, an army is going to lay siege around the city of Jerusalem. more than that, and level you and your children within you.

Now he's talking to the city. Alright? So he says, your children within you, he's talking about the inhabitants of the city. That would include children, but everyone. They will level it, you, your children within you to the ground and they will not leave in you one stone upon another.

And this actually did happen. About 70 years later, you know your history. Titus, the Roman general, besieged the city of Jerusalem, eventually conquered it and destroyed it where not one stone was left standing upon another.

Why? Because, well, Jesus says why. Because you did not know, that is, recognize the time of your visitation and the coming of the Messiah.

You didn't see it. Actually, you refused me as your king. I'm here, but you've refused me and now it's too late. I mean, this is serious.

It's disturbing. And listen, these are clear words of judgment, aren't they? Obviously. And really, by extension, clear words of judgment upon all who have had every opportunity to repent and to believe in King Jesus.

There's coming a day when the door will be shut. There's coming a day when, because you've refused your king, like the passage last week, you've refused him.

So whatever you have been given, that too will be taken away from you. There's coming a day when judgment will fall. And what everyone needs to hear, I don't, I don't know in this group who needs to hear this.

Well, we all do in a sense, but there's some who are definitely to hear this. that is, don't miss the time of your visitation. The time of your visitation.

Because one day it will come to an end. God will give God give His true king what He demands.

Faith. Thank you.