FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF VILLA RICA, PCA

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THE KING OF ZION COMES

Villa Rica, April 13, 2003

Luke 19:28-44 Cf. Zechariah 9:9-17

During the days of Abraham Jerusalem was known as Salem. Salem means complete, peaceful, peace. It is the natural abbreviation of the word Jerusalem, the city or foundation of peace. During the post-Abrahamic period, before the Israelite conquest under Joshua, it became known as Jebus because the Jebusites lived there. They were one of the mountain tribes of the Canaanites who were overthrown by Joshua. Their territory was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin, but the Jebusites were allowed to dwell among them.

In process of time the Jebusites increased in numbers and Jebus or Salem again reverted to them. The hill on which the city was situated was called Zion. The word Zion stands for a safe place, a refuge, a fortification. It was considered an impregnable stronghold. When David became king after the death of Saul he at first had his headquarters at Hebron, where he reigned for seven years and six months. But at the end of that time he and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites.

They told David that he could not come into their stronghold, that the blind and the lame would turn him away. But David captured the city and ever since that time it has been known as the city of David or Jerusalem; also retaining the name stronghold of Zion, or city of Zion. 

I. Zechariah Prophesied Of Zion=S Future King

A. Long after David=s day Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, the temple had been razed to the ground and it was not until 520 BC that a remnant returned, and under the leadership of Zechariah they began rebuilding the temple. Jerusalem was in a poor and decayed state, as you can imagine. The foundation of the temple was laid but the work was progressing slowly. Zechariah saw his mission to be the complete rebuilding of the temple and the setting up of the altar of burnt offerings on its old site, which he did.  Zechariah called the people to repentance and prophesied the promise of a new theocracy for Israel in which God would be King; the long-promised Messiah will come. The Kingdom of God will be established and King Messiah will reign over all hostile world powers. A new age of peace will dawn for Zion. 

  Zechariah=s prophecy is the classic Palm Sunday passage. Zechariah prophesied in 9:9-10, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth."

B.  It was a very deliberate act on the part of Jesus to enter Jerusalem as he did on that Sunday before Good Friday. You will recall that he made ready by directing two of his disciples to go to a village near to the Mount of Olives and as they entered they would find a colt tied that had never been sat upon. They were to bring that colt, simply telling the owner that the Lord had need of it. Why? Why would Jesus send for a colt and then sit upon it as he did to enter Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah? Everything Jesus did was done according to the scriptures. He purposely made this move because now his time has come to disclose to all Israel who he was, the long-promised Messiah of Israel. Prior to this time he had not openly declared himself.  He had revealed himself privately to some but not publicly as he now does. When he was transfigured before Peter, James and John he strictly charged them not to tell anyone what they had seen until he had risen from the dead. But now he comes in exact fulfillment of Zechariah=s prophecy, and in doing so is saying, I am the One of whom Zechariah prophesied. I am your King. I am the just One, the holy One of Israel. I am endowed with salvation. I will speak peace to the nations. My dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. 

He does not come as a conquering King on a warhorse with an entourage of mighty men. No, he comes as a man of peace on a beast that symbolized peace. A donkey was the animal of a man of peace, associated with someone like a priest, a merchant or the like, but not a man of war. 

C. There were those there who in some sense acknowledged that He was a special person because he had raised Lazarus from the dead. We are told in John=s gospel that they went out to him because they had heard he had performed this sign. We are also told that the disciples did not at the time understand, but that when Jesus was glorified at His resurrection they then remembered that these things had been done to him.

But it was undoubtedly in fulfillment of Zechariah=s prophecy they began to rejoice greatly. They threw their garments down in front of Him. They took branches of palm trees and leafy branches from the fields and strewed them before Him as he rode into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey. They are ecstatic, enthusiastic and joyous. Now is the coming of the kingdom of the Messiah and great things are at hand.

It was a triumphal procession. No one could mistake it for anything other than that. Some of the Pharisees were offended by all the adulation and praise He was receiving. This adulation was unbecoming for Jews. It was wrong to give praise and honor that belongs only to God to a mere man. They said to Him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. And He answered and said, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out! 

He does not deny their acknowledgment of who He was for He knew who He was, even if most of them did not.

II.   Jesus Knew Who He Was, But Sadly,             Jerusalem Did Not Know

A. In Luke=s gospel we are given information about how convinced Jesus was that he was the promised Messiah King and how bad He felt that Jerusalem as a whole did not know it. In Luke 19:41-44 we read: And when He approached, 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 have been hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and 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 the Messiah weeps. This is the day of divine visitation and the city is oblivious for the most part to it. True, some disciples fulfill the prophecy by shouting hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord, even the king of Israel. But the chief priests and rulers of the people did not acknowledge Him. They saw Him as an outsider, an upstart rabbi who had no proper credentials. They rejected him, as the words of those observing Pharisees show by their request that He rebuke His disciples. They disdained Him, they hated Him, and they wanted Him out of the way and were plotting how they might get rid of Him.

Jesus weeps about this. For over three years they had seen his miracles and evidences of His Messiah ship. Now as he openly comes as Israel's Messiah, unhesitatingly rejecting the request of the Pharisees, declaring that it is an absolute impossibility for Him not to be applauded and honored as the Messiah prophesied, as the King of Israel, that even if his human followers had kept silent the very inanimate stones would cry out and exult that He was come.

He cannot hold back the tears as he beholds Jerusalem before him. She was the prized and chosen city. This city above all others was God=s jewel.

But the request of the Pharisees to silence His disciples only proves to Him anew how the Jewish leaders (and through them the Jewish people) persist in their rejection of Him. He weeps in passionate pity for the people that will have to pay such a heavy penalty for their rejection. If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

In these words Jesus gives utterance to His sincere longing that even now at the eleventh hour the Jewish citizens should yet accept in time the redemption offered by God through Him. But, alas! He realizes only too well that it is already too late; their persistence in their wicked unbelief has blinded them to the opportunities for redemption still remaining; through their own fault the way to salvation is declared hidden from their sight.

Because the people as a whole are thus going to persist in unbelief and hardness of heart, terrible judgments will come upon them. For their refusal for three years to believe in Him, notwithstanding all His words and deeds, it has been proved over and over again that they will never believe in Him. In the providence of God a mighty enemy (of course the Romans -- the only world power that would at that time be able to play such a part) will soon come to besiege Jerusalem and destroy both temple and city because they did not avail themselves of the time of Grace, when God visited them in their Messiah, in order to offer them, first among all the nations, redemption and everlasting salvation.

Here we see the heart of God bared to our eyes. God is sovereign. He is irresistible to His elect, but He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His heart is heavy and His human eyes shed tears as He beholds the ancient city and contemplated her latter end; because she did not believe, did not recognize her Messiah when He came. She is to lose her favored status. She is to be turned over to her enemies and be leveled to the ground.

Can you explain it to someone? Why had these churchmen of the day, both liberal and orthodox, joined forces in opposing and resisting Jesus Christ? Would you say that it was because God had not sent them sufficient light? But that could not be so, for Christ said to Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'"

Thus He bears witness against them that they had been given all the light they could possibly have had and yet still persisted in stubborn unbelief. God had over and over sent holy men of God to them, but the more light they got the harder they got in their hearts. Their blindness grew greater the brighter the light. It is a known fact that the same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay.

It is still true today. Not all men are affected alike by the gospel. The Word that softens some hardens others. But God is not to blame when men reject the light He sends to them. Here was Israel, God=s special people and Jerusalem His special city and they are so hardened that judgment is going to come upon them instead of peace and redemption.

B. Jesus knew who He was but Jerusalem did not know Him when He came entering the city. They missed the greatest opportunity that can come to any man or nation. They missed the Savior. They missed salvation. They may have thought of Him as a teacher, a man with special gifts, a man who could attract a following, even his own disciples at that time may not have correctly understood his mission and how he would save them. Do you? Are you sure that you know really and truly who Jesus Christ is and what He did for you and for me?

The stumbling block for the Jews was his apparent political artlessness, his lack of education, his lack of earthly glory, his association with publicans and sinners, his words that spoke judgment upon them for their misuse of the stewardship of the things of God. As Paul said later to the Corinthians: "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well‑pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

The cross of Christ reduces all of us to nothing but vile sinners who can only be saved by the death of Christ hanging on that cruel tree, paying the penalty for my sins and yours. This is what hinders men from coming to Christ to be saved. They would like to be saved but not by that means. They would like devise their own plan, their own method for attaining to God=s approval and acceptance. So they manufacture a God of their own imagination, not the God of the scriptures.

As we are here this morning worshiping together, do you understand and believe that Jesus is who He believed himself to be, the Messiah of God, the Savior of the world, the Son of the living God bringing salvation to the nations?

Then rejoice with knowledge and understanding. Be sure you have received Him into your heart as your own personal Savior and Lord. Repent of all your sins and ask Him to cleanse you and put His Spirit in you. Receive Him today!