Turn in your Bibles to Luke 19:35-44 and we will pick up reading where I left off reading in the introduction. Please stand if you are able in respect for the reading of God’s Word.

Luke 19:35-44,

“They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it. As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. As 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 have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against 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.’” (Luke 19:35–44, NASB95)[2]

This morning I will be using John 1:11 as my outline, John writes, “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” (John 1:11, NASB95)[3]

HE CAME TO HIS OWN (Luke 19:35-40)

Sitting upon this colt that no one had ever ridden before, for any other person to have done this that colt would have gone to great effort to remove that person from its back. But when his Creator mounted him, he was as docile as a lamb. Again, we see the deity of Jesus Christ in this scene as this unbroken animal receives Him on his back and calmly walks toward Jerusalem with Jesus riding him.

This is the first and only time that Jesus allowed His disciples and those traveling with Him from Galilee to publicly demonstrate on his behalf, clearly stating that He was the promised Messiah. Jesus permitted this public demonstration of His claim to be Messiah and the promised King for two reasons. First, He permitted it to fulfill prophecy, though Luke does not mention that this is a fulfillment of prophecy both Matthew and John do. They both quote from Zechariah 9:9 where the prophet wrote, “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.” (Zechariah 9:9, NASB95)[4] John goes on and informs us, “These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.” (John 12:16, NASB95)[5] Remember that many of those coming into Jerusalem with Him were those from the region of Galilee and had heard Him speak and had seen the miracles He had performed, the fact that He had just recently raised Lazarus from the dead was still fresh in their memories and was still being talked about. The significance of Jesus riding down the Mount of Olives and across the Kidron Valley and up into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey was not lost on the people. Another king had done something similar. When Solomon was anointed and inaugurated as king succeeding his father David, he rode David’s mule, first to the spring of Gihon, part of the brook Kidron which separated the Mount of Olives from the Mountain on which Jerusalem was built. Here he was anointed king by the priest and then he rode into Jerusalem being hailed the king of Israel. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the colt was not lost on the people. Many believed that as the Messiah, He would bring them deliverance. In His symbolic ride into Jerusalem, they understood that He was announcing publicly that He was the Messiah, He was the Son of David, He was the promised and rightful King of Israel. That is what accounted for their welcome of Him with loud voices celebrating His arrival to Jerusalem. That is the first reason Jesus Christ permitted this public demonstration on His behalf, to fulfill the prophecy concerning who He was, the Messiah.

Second, Jesus permitted this public demonstration on His behalf to force the hand of the religious leaders. Their plan was to do away with Jesus, but not during the Passover. Matthew speaks of this in Matthew 26:3-5, “Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas; and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill Him. But they were saying, ‘Not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur among the people.’” (Matthew 26:3–5, NASB95)[6] They wanted to wait until after the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread when most of the people had returned to their homes. But God had ordained that His Son, Jesus Christ, would be slain on Passover, as our perfect Passover Lamb, as the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Seeing this public demonstration and the celebration of the people hailing Him as king as He rode into Jerusalem the religious leaders knew that had to act and when Judas came to them and offered to betray Jesus to them their problem of when and where was solved.

As Jesus rode toward Jerusalem the people celebrated loudly and threw their cloaks on the road before Him, and waved palm branches pulled from the trees. They celebrated with loud voices and each of the Gospels vary in what the people were shouting letting us know that they were shouting all of these things. Luke records that they were loudly proclaiming, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38, NASB95)[7] These words that they shouted come from our Scripture reading this morning that Daniel read to us from Psalm 118. This Psalm is what is called a Messianic psalm, a psalm that was written hundreds of years earlier for the people to cry as they welcomed their long-awaited Messiah and king. It calls blessing on the King, the promised One, the Coming One, because He comes in the name of Lord, in other words He is the Lord’s authorized representative, the One that was promised by the prophets in the Old Testament. Luke begins his Gospel with the angel’s announcement of peace on earth, the reign of the Messiah will be a reign of peace, the people announce peace in heaven. During the reign of the Messiah-king God will be at peace with men and blessing the people through the Messiah. Glory in the highest was a shout of praise that the heavenly purpose of God would be fulfilled in the Messiah. As they made their way to Jerusalem, they were heralding the coming of the King for they thought that He would immediately set up His kingdom as He entered His capital. They had to learn that there could be no kingdom for their Messiah before the cross. He must first die for our sins before He could establish His kingdom, we first needed to be redeemed from the kingdom of darkness before we could enter His glorious kingdom of light. As they shouted the words of Psalm 118:26 they needed to read the next verse of Psalm 118, verse 27 reads, “The Lord is God, and He has given us light; Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.” (Psalm 118:27, NASB95)[8] The Lord Jesus Christ was to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin before He could take His throne and reign.

Some of the Pharisees that were in the crowd traveling into Jerusalem, those religious leaders who claimed to be waiting for the Messiah, were not happy with the seemingly uncontrolled enthusiasm of the disciples and the people. They clearly understood that the people with their loud celebration were identifying Jesus as the Messiah, this was not who they identified Him as, to them He was a troublemaker, a lawbreaker with His blasphemy of making Himself equal with God. Now the people were shouting blasphemy identifying Jesus as the Messiah. It had to stop; Jesus had to set them straight to bring this celebration to a halt. “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’” (Luke 19:39, NASB95)[9] Jesus instead of rebuking the people for their identification of Him as Messiah, rebuked the Pharisees. He said that on this particular day if the people become silent, the stones would cry out heralding Him as the Messiah. That day was so momentous, the One riding the colt was so important that f men did not recognize what it meant, the hard rocks of God’s creation would become vocal and praise Him and herald Him as the Messiah, the coming King. In answer to their request, He rebuked them charging them to being harder and less sensitive to what was happening and who He truly was than the rocks.

So, as He came in view of the city, with the words of the Pharisees still ringing in His ears He knew that the people would not be ready to receive Him as their Messiah. “He came to His own…” (John 1:11a, NASB95)[10] This first “own” in this verse in John 1:11 is neuter in Greek. Being neuter it refers to “His own things” which we see Him doing here. He is coming to His own city and His own temple, the place that He had chosen for His name to reside, the place that should have recognized Him for who He was, their Messiah. “He came unto His own…” (John 1:11a, NASB95)[11]

AND THOSE WHO WERE HIS OWN DID NOT RECEIVE HIM (Luke 19:41-44)

“When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,” (Luke 19:41, NASB95)[12] As the city came into full view and knowing that He would be rejected, arrested, tried, and crucified because “those who were His own did not receive Him.” (John 1:11b, NASB95)[13] “His own” here in Greek is masculine and is personal and refers to His own people. The people He had chosen, the people He had redeemed out of Egypt, the people through whom He was to come, His own people, the nation of Israel, who should have recognized Him, did not receive Him but rejected Him. As He looked across the Kidron valley at the city, His city and knowing what the attitude towards Him was to be, what was going to happen in the days to come, His heart was breaking knowing the consequences that Israel would suffer in the centuries to come and in the near future. He wept over the city. He saw the sin and the iniquity of the people of Jerusalem, He saw their rejection and sin as no one else could, and they were guilty. This is one of three times that we are told the Lord wept. What a sad sight must any city be to the all-seeing eyes of our Lord as sin and wickedness grows more and more each day. God had chosen Jerusalem as the place where His name dwell and when He came to them as their Messiah, they rejected Him.

As he wept over the city, He spoke to the city and exclaimed, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:42, NASB95)[14] If they would have known. But they did not, they chose to be ignorant, they chose to not understand. The Old Testament prophets had spoken of the Messiah, if they would have searched the Scriptures, they would have recognized that the peace they so desperately wanted was right there before them. The trouble with people then and the trouble with people now is that they do not know. They had opportunity to know, but there was no desire to understand and so they must suffer the consequences for their willful ignorance. Because the people of Israel were ignorant of their own Scriptures, even those who were called the religious leaders, they fulfilled those Scriptures in rejecting their Messiah. If you had known, but now it was too late. They had turned their hearts against the Lord, and now their judgment was on its way. Jesus lamented, “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against 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.”” (Luke 19:43–44, NASB95)[15] Jesus foresaw the Romans armies under Titus surrounding the city of Jerusalem and laying siege to it and cutting off all sources of provision for those trapped inside. Jesus graphically described exactly what happened about 40 years after His death. The Roman legions laid siege to the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and at last broke through and slaughtered many Jews and razed the city, the temple, and the walls, literally as Jesus said not one stone was left upon another. Why did this devastation come upon the people of Israel, the inhabitants of Jerusalem? Jesus said it was “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:44b, NASB95)[16] God Himself had come to them in the Person of His Son, but they did not realize who it was, “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” (John 1:11, NASB95)[17]

CONCLUSION:

As we enter into this week in which we remember the final week leading up to Good Friday and then Resurrection Sunday, the greatest celebration of the Christian faith, without the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ our faith would be in vain, we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins. But the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are true. Do not be like those inhabitants of Jerusalem who did not recognize their Messiah. Today is the day that God is visiting us don’t be like those of His own who did not receive Him. If you have never trusted in Christ, if you have never repented of your sin, recognizing that you are helpless to save yourself from God’s coming wrath against sin, then believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe that He died for you, that He suffered God’s wrath for your sin and in His death paid the penalty for your sin, believe that He was buried and on the third day rose from the dead. We looked at John 1:11 this morning, that is the sad side of the story, the other side is found in John 1:12 which says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” (John 1:12, NASB95)[18] Have you received Him, have you believed in His name? If you have received Him, have you shared Him with someone else?

[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[12]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[13]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[14]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[15]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[16]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[17]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

[18]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

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Blessed is the King Who Comes in the Name of the Lord (Luke 19:28-44)