#158 Lu. 19:28-40 JESUS RIDING INTO JERUSALEM Introduction: In our previous several texts Jesus was at the city of Jericho near Jerusalem. In our text today, we will see Him leave Jericho and travel on toward the city of Jerusalem. This is the city where He will be crucified. I. Jesus, His disciples, and a great crowd of people going up to Jerusalem V. 28, "And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem." Jericho lay a little less than twenty miles to the northeast of Jerusalem. It was situated at the very edge of a mountain range. Luke said that they went up to Jerusalem. That was literally so. It was an upward climb all the way. Luke does not mention it in this verse, but Jesus was not traveling alone. His disciples were with Him and many other people were traveling with them. They had been in a the company of a great number of people even from the time they had left Capernaum to go to Jerusalem. A lot of others from that area traveled with them on their way to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. Then as they traveled along, they were joined by many others from every city and village. The great miracles which Jesus performed at each village was a special attraction which increased the numbers which traveled with them. People who were going to Jerusalem anyway wanted to travel with Jesus so that they might witness some of the miracles He was performing at each city and village. They would not be disappointed. He performed many miracles during this journey. The healing of blind Bartimaeus at Jericho was a notable example. II. Jesus at Bethany and at Bethphage V. 29, "And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of Olives..." Bethphage and Bethany were twin-villages which lay on the eastern slope of the Mt. of Olives. The two villages were side by side so that one would hardly know when he left one village and entered the other. Under ordinary conditions there would be very few people in the two villages combined. However, at this season of the year, when so many people were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover, great numbers of people would stay there and go back and forth daily into Jerusalem which was only about two miles away. The great number of people who were traveling with Jesus swelled that number all the more. Jesus and those with Him, as they came from Jericho, came first to Bethany. Luke says nothing about it, but it was while they were at Bethany that Lazarus was raised from the dead. The great crowd of people traveling with them were already much excited about the miracles they had already witnessed. They had just come from Jericho where He had healed the blind and they were still excited about that. While they were there at Bethany another great miracle happened. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead even after he had been in the tomb so long that he was stinking. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was instantaneous emotion. The villages of Bethany and Bethphage and all the great masses of people gathered there were electrified. They were at the very highest emotional pitch. Virtually everybody was now saying that Jesus really is the promised Christ. Now not all that many were yet saved, but they were at least momentarily convinced that He is the Christ. III. Jesus sending for a colt (V. 29), "...he sent two of his disciples..." We are not told which two disciples were sent. There has been a lot of speculation. The only thing I fell safe in assuming is that they were most likely two of the twelve apostles and we can feel pretty sure that Judas was not one of them. V. 30-35a, "Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him. And they brought him to Jesus..." The village that they were sent into was Bethphage. They were sent to get a colt for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem. This was not the colt of a horse, but the colt of an ass. That is, it was a young male donkey. Jesus told them where to find the colt and they found him just where Jesus said. They were told that if any man challenged what they were doing to say, "The Lord has need of him" and it worked. It was the owners who challenged them and when they learned that it was Jesus who wanted to use their colt, they were very pleased to let Him use it. I think that right at that time the people were so excited about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead that Jesus could have asked just about anything of anybody in that little village had and they would have given it to Him. That is the way it ought to be with all of us. We all ought to be perfectly willing for our Lord to use anything we own in His service. After all, it really came to us from Him in the first place. And in reality it still belongs to Him. The disciples brought the colt to Jesus. By the way, Matthew says that they were sent after a colt and the colt's mother and that they brought both to Jesus. Neither Mark nor Luke mention the mother of the colt. IV. The reaction of the disciples and the great crowd of people (V. 35), "...and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon." The disciples had no royal saddle or saddle blankets with which to decorate the colt. So they improvised. They just stripped off their outer garments, their robes and put them on the colt for Jesus to sit on. Then they lifted Him up onto the back of that colt to ride into the city of Jerusalem. V. 36, "And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way." The rest of the disciples spread their garments in the roadway for the colt to walk on. The people in that great crowd did likewise. According to the accounts of Matthew and Mark many of them cut palm branches, which would lay out flat, and spread them also out in front for the colt to walk on. They did not have a red carpet, but they gave Jesus the red carpet treatment. V. The descent down Mt. Olives V. 37, "And when he was come nigh, even now at 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 that they had seen." Right out of Bethphage was located one of the three peaks of Mt. Olive. From this peak virtually the whole city of Jerusalem could be seen. The road took a sharp drop down, down, down toward the city. Just before it reached the city there was a dry creek bed and the road bottomed out at that creek. The disciples and most of the people in that great crowd were already on an emotional high. But when they came over the hump and the city of Jerusalem came into view, Luke says that they burst out in great praised to God and to the Christ He had sent. Luke speaks primarily of the disciples doing this. But both Matthew and Mark make it clear that virtually the whole multitude were involved. There was about two miles of road from that peak down to that bottom. Believe me, that crowd of people had a great time praising God for that two miles and then on into the city. As I mentioned earlier, Luke will not discuss the actual entrance into the city. But let me raise a question right here. Just what is going on anyhow? Why would Jesus send His disciples to get this colt for Him to ride into the city? Why did the disciples spread their robes on the colt for Jesus to sit on? And why did the people spread their garments and palm branches in the roadway ahead of the colt? Just what is going on here? The answer is that the time has come for Jesus to publicly proclaim Himself to be the Christ. Back at Jericho when Blind Bartimaeus cried out to Him for mercy he call Jesus, "Thou son of David." This was equivalent to calling Him the Christ. The disciples, of course, already believed Him to be the Christ. By now most of the people in this crowd traveling with Him were calling Him the Christ. Since the Old Testament prophets had foretold that the Christ would be a king, the calling Him the Christ was the same as calling Him a king. This was in line with the expectations of His disciples. From the time they had left Galilee they had expected that upon their arrival at Jerusalem Jesus would proclaim Himself as king. Now the sending of the two disciples after the colt and riding upon that colt into Jerusalem was the equivalent as saying, "I am king." It was customary that when a king would enter into a large city he would ride into the city with great pomp and splendor. If he was engaged in war, he would ride in on a horse. If he was celebrating a victory gained in war, he would ride in on a white horse. But if he was entering on a mission of peace, he would ride in on an ass or a mule. So that is why Jesus had sent His disciples after the colt of an ass. He was acknowledging publicly that He is the promised king. He is the promised Messiah. He is the Christ. He is the promised king. He chose to ride into Jerusalem on the colt of an ass rather than a horse because He had come on a mission of peace. Likewise, this is what His disciples were doing putting their garments on the colt and on the ground in front of the colt. And this is what the thousands of people were doing joining in by laying their garments on the ground in front of the colt and cutting palm branches and laying them in front of the colt. With great emotional the great masses of people were proclaiming Jesus to be the promised Christ. He is the promised King. VI. The kind of King Jesus came to be Let me say, however, that the kind of king that Jesus had in mind and the kind of king that the others had in mind were not the same. Jesus had repeatedly told His disciples as they journeyed toward Jerusalem that He would not be crowned as king when they arrived. What He meant, of course, was that He would not be an earthly king. Later when He would stand before Pilate in judgment, He would be asked if He is a king over the Jews. He would answer, "My kingdom is not of this world." So even now, as He rides on the colt proclaiming Himself as a king, it is not an earthly king that He proclaims Himself to be. He is a King, but He is the King of a spiritual kingdom. I feel sure that many of His disciples still failed to get the truth about His Kingship at this time. They must have mistakenly thought that He had changed His mind and was proclaiming Himself the King of Israel and that He would use His mighty power to take the throne. Many in the crowd were thinking the same thing. As they cried out, they praised Him as that promised King. V. 38, "Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord..." They thought He was the promised King who would come in the name of the Lord God of heaven. They were not expecting the promised King to be the Lord God of heaven. They were expecting Him to come merely in the name of God and with the authority and blessings of God upon Him. They were not expecting Him to be the Lord God of heaven. (V. 38), "...peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." They were asking for all heaven to be at peace at His coming. That is, they were asking for heaven to be pleased at His coming. They were asking for all who are in the heavens to give praises to God for sending the promised king. VII. Voices of opposition However, not every voice was a voice of praise. Even in that huge crowd, there were a few voices of opposition. V. 39, "And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples." They thought that the great crowd of people who were hailing Jesus as the Christ were completely out of order. They thought it was blasphemy. They were most certainly wrong in this. The people were not wrong in proclaiming Him as King. They were just wrong about the kind of King He was. The Pharisees also blamed the disciples for inciting the multitude to proclaim Him as King and they were almost certainly right in this matter. It was the disciples who first took off their robes and spread them on the colt and on the ground in front of the colt. They were most likely the first ones to proclaim Him to be the King. I'm telling you, those disciples were having the time of their lives proclaiming Jesus as the King. To them, this was a glory-halleluah, shouting good time and they were living it up. V. 40, "And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." But Jesus was in no mood to rebuke those disciples. Instead, He said that if the disciples and others had kept silent about Him being the King, that God would have cause the stones of the ground to cry out the message. VIII. A few things to observe Let me point out a few things to you about this event. If Jesus had wanted to become the King of Israel at this time, He would have had no problem in establishing Himself on the throne. He could have re-established the throne of David and driven out the Roman armies and taken over the whole land of Israel if He had just wanted to. But Jesus had not come to this world to take over the throne of Israel. So had He come to Jerusalem sit on a throne. Jesus had come to the world to seek and to save that which is lost and He had come to Jerusalem to be crucified so that He could pay the sin-debt for every lost sinner. The time will come when Jesus will come back to the world to establish His throne in Jerusalem. When He does, He will not rule just Israel alone. When He establishes His throne in Jerusalem He will rule the whole world. He will rule the world for a thousand years. Never-the-less, Jesus was a King even at that time, just as He proclaimed Himself to be by riding the colt. He was the King of a great spiritual kingdom. He had come to seek and to save that which is lost and every lost sinner that He saved became one of the subjects in His kingdom. Jesus was and is still the King of all who are going to heaven. Many of us right here today are members of His kingdom. I was sixteen years of age when I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior and entered the kingdom. Jesus is my Lord and my King. Many of you, in your hearts, know that you are in His kingdom. You know that you have trusted Jesus and you are saved. You know that when you die you will not have to fear the fires of hell. You know that when you die you will be in a far better place. Conclusion: But listen! I fear that there may be some here this morning who are not in the kingdom of God. If you are not in the kingdom, you can change that. Right here right now you can call on the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him to save your soul. You can trust Him to keep you out of hell. You can ask Him to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from every sin. The promise of God is that if you will call on Jesus and place your faith in Him to save your soul He will do it. "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," Rom. 10:13. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," Acts 16:31. To put it another way, you can make Jesus your king now. You do not have to wait until He comes back to let Him be your King. You can make Him your king right now. Will you do so?