Why God Delays Love Until The Perfect Time — A Message For The Chosen | Dr. R.c. Sproul

This morning, we're going to continue our study of the Gospel according to St. Luke. We're still in chapter 6, where we have Luke's account of Jesus' sermon on the mount. We're now coming near the end of that sermon.

As today, I will be reading from verse 43 through verse 49 of chapter 6. "For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. And as a good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good, and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks."

Again, what you have just heard is the very word of God, coming through the superintendence of God the Holy Spirit and by his inspiration. Please receive it this morning with the full authority that attends unto it. Let's pray again.

Our Father and our God, we come before you as the author of all truth, as the source of all goodness, as the fountain of all beauty. And we ask, as we contemplate the significance of our Lord's words this morning for our lives, that you will help us to understand them and to apply them to our own hearts and minds and lives. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I've mentioned before one of the favorite sayings of the late Jim Kennedy, where Jim used to say, "There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can count and those that can't." We also know that in the canons of the discipline of logic, there are many types of fallacies, both formal and informal. And one of the most common informal fallacies of logic is that fallacy called the either-or fallacy, or the fallacy of the false dilemma. That fallacy is committed when we try to reduce options to two and say, "It has to be either this or that," when in fact, it could be a third option, or there may even be more options to consider. So we can err in our thinking by reducing things to one of two options when there are more.

However, there are other situations and other matters where it really does come down to one of two alternatives. You're either alive or you're dead. There's no tertium quid involved with that. But what we're concerned with this morning is that example where Jesus reduces things to two when he talks about good trees and bad trees. And throughout the scriptures, and particularly in the New Testament, we hear such distinctions between one of two things. For example, in the church, we find both sheep and goats, which is to say, we find people who are truly saved and those who are not. The sheep and the goats define those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and those who are not regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Because you can't be somewhere in the middle between regenerated or unregenerated. You're either born of the Holy Spirit, or you're still in the flesh. There is no middle ground. And of course, it's of eternal importance and significance for everyone who is in the church to come to a clear understanding as to what their status is.

So I want you to consider with me this morning your standing in the kingdom of God. Are you a sheep who belongs to the sheepfold of the good shepherd? Or are you a false professor who is still numbered among the goats, even though you appear regularly in the household of faith every Sunday morning? Are you truly a regenerate person? Are you in a state of grace, or are you faking it?

Again, I've said so many times, you're probably sick and tired of hearing it, is that even though every Christian who comes to faith is required of God to make a profession of that faith, the profession of faith redeems no one. We must not only profess our faith, but we must possess that which we profess. And Jesus warns again and again about those who are quick to confess him with their lips, while at the same time their hearts are far from him. So it can boil down to this this morning: Are you a Christian, or are you not? Are you in a state of justification, or are you not?

Now, Jesus set before us the following options about these matters. He says, "A good tree does not bear bad fruit." Or this can also be translated, "A rotten tree does not produce good fruit." That is to say, if the tree is rotten to the core, that which will come from that tree will be rotten as well. Nor does a bad tree produce good fruit. So what Jesus is saying is, every good tree produces good fruit, and every bad tree produces only bad fruit. And so what he's getting at is this point that he's using as an exclamation point for his sermon: "where every tree is known by its own fruit."

Now, this issue of fruit that comes from a person was at the heart of the controversy that broke out in Europe almost 495 years ago. In the end of next month, we will celebrate the 495th anniversary of Martin Luther's posting the 95 theses at the church door at Wittenberg, which became the celebrated cause for the Protestant Reformation, because Luther made the declaration that "the just shall live by faith," and that to be justified in the presence of God occurs by faith and by faith alone, not by faith mixed with good works.

In the Roman Catholic system, justification was thought to begin at baptism as a sacramental act administered by the priest, whereby the grace of justification is infused into the soul. And when that soul ascends and cooperates to it, the person is then in a state of justification before God. And that state of justification lasts until a person commits a mortal sin. And if that person commits a mortal sin, called mortal because it has the power to kill or destroy that justifying grace in the soul, that if a person commits such a sin, they lose their justification. They still may retain their faith. So in the Roman system, according to the succession of the Council of Trent, one can have faith and still not have justification, because you can have faith and commit a mortal sin. And when you commit a mortal sin, you're no longer justified.

Well, what is the remedy for that? Well, according to Rome, the remedy was through another sacrament, the sacrament of penance, which Rome called and still calls the "second plank of justification" for those who have made shipwreck of their souls. That's why if you commit mortal sin, you go to confession, and you go through the sacrament of penance. You confess your sins, you receive priestly absolution. But it doesn't stop there. In order for justification to be restored, you must do what Rome defines as works of satisfaction. Those works of satisfaction may be seemingly small and insignificant. May only involve saying so many "Our Fathers" or so many "Hail Marys," but they produce for the sinner what Rome calls "congruous merit," merit that is sufficiently meritorious that makes it fitting or congruous for God to restore that person to a state of justification, where they continue until or unless they commit another mortal sin, and then they have to go through the process again. And if they die without mortal sin on their soul, but still have venial sin or any impurity remaining, they still do not enter into the gates of heaven, but must first go to the purging place called purgatory, where those impurities are cleansed away. And when they are fully and finally cleansed, which may be after one day or after a million years, then the soul is finally able to enter into heaven.

And Luther reacted strenuously against that by saying, "No, no, no, no, no. That's not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's not the gospel of the New Testament." The gospel of the New Testament promises that the very second you put your trust in Jesus Christ, all that he is and all that he has becomes yours.

And Paul writes, "Being justified, then we have peace with God and access into his presence, just as Abraham was counted righteous the moment he believed God." And so the good news for us is that even though we are still sinners, we can still be justified in the sight of God by putting our faith in him. And the moment we put our faith in him, we receive a covering. The imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ clothes us, covers us, just like the atoning blood covered the mercy seat in the Old Testament. So now the righteousness of Jesus is transferred to your account and to my account the moment I put my faith in him. That's the gospel.

Said any works that I bring to the table count for nothing. The only righteousness by which I will ever be determined to be righteous in the sight of God, said Luther, was a righteousness that is extra nos, apart from us, aside from us, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that doesn't properly belong to me. I haven't performed it, I haven't achieved it. It's somebody else's righteousness, the righteousness of our Savior. Here, so that the minute I put my trust in him, he covers my filthy rags with his righteousness, and God pronounces me just in his sight. I come with nothing in my hand, no good deeds, no list of achievements. I can't go to the gate of heaven and say, "I never miss church on Sunday morning. I was a deacon. I was an elder. I was a pastor." No. The only thing that'll get us into the presence of God is the righteousness of Christ and his righteousness alone.

So then, the question in the 16th century, and the question that persists today, well, then what about works? Doesn't Jesus call us to do good works? Isn't our Lord profoundly concerned about the fruit that we produce if we're regenerate people? If we're justified people, will we not manifest that by the fruit that we bear?

20 years ago or so, a major controversy broke out within the evangelical world that was called the Lordship Salvation controversy. There were those in one camp who said that you can be saved if you put your trust in Jesus as savior. If you embrace Jesus as savior and don't receive him as your Lord, you can still be saved. That is, since justification is by faith and by faith alone, you can have a faith that is alone. You can have a faith that never brings forth fruit, a faith that never produces good works, and still be justified. Part of that was a result of the very wide dissemination of a distorted view of salvation that was associated with the concept of the carnal Christian. Maybe you've heard of that. The idea is that in our fallen condition, we are altogether carnal. We have no spiritual fruit whatsoever. And then the carnal Christian idea was that when we receive Jesus as savior, Christ comes into our lives, although he's not necessarily on the throne of our life, and we can still be, even though we're saved, altogether carnal, showing no fruit, no works whatsoever. Some people in that camp said, "Well, if the Holy Spirit has really come into your life, if you really are justified, sooner or later, you may show some fruit of that, in some cases sooner, in other cases later." Whereas others argued and said, "No, it may never appear in your life, and you're still in a state of salvation, even though you're carnal, because justification is by faith and by faith alone, without any reference to works."

That's not the biblical doctrine. Certainly not Luther's doctrine or the Reformation doctrine. I remind you that Luther said justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. That is, the only kind of faith that saves you is a legitimate faith, a living faith, not a mere dead profession of faith. And so if you have faith, even though the works that you produce out of that faith don't count a fig toward your justification, nevertheless, they are necessary manifestations of that true faith, or you don't have saving faith. That is to say, if you don't have works, it means you don't have faith. And if you don't have faith, you don't have justification, merely a profession of it. So that if all you have is a profession of faith and you have no fruit in your life, all that qualifies you to be is a goat in the church, a bad tree that brings forth only bad fruit.

So, what we're saying is this: How do you know whether you're a sheep or a goat? How do you know if you're saved or unsaved? If you're regenerate or unregenerate? Well, our Lord told us the answer to that question. "You shall know them by their words." It's not what he said. "You shall know them by their fruit."

This idea goes way back to the Old Testament, to the very beginning of the book of Psalms. I remind you of what David wrote in the very first Psalm. Let's hear it again: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in that law does he meditate day and night." I could change a couple of the words in that and without changing, "Blessed is the man who delights in the word of God, meditates in it day and night." If you have no affection, if you have no love for the word of God, that would be a sure indicator that your soul has not been changed. You are still in your sins. You are still altogether carnal, with no spiritual life in you. But the godly man delights in the law of the Lord and meditates in it day and night. Well, what will he be like? The psalmist said he'll be like a tree. What kind of a tree? A rotten tree? A diseased tree that brings forth diseased fruit? Not at all. He'll be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season. He'll be a fruit-bearing tree whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. Then David goes on to say, "But the ungodly are not so." The ungodly are not like that. They're not like the tree that brings forth its fruit in its season. The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind drives away. The slightest zephyr, the smallest breeze is enough to carry away all that they have because it lacks spiritual substance.

Well, Jesus goes on with this metaphor here in chapter six. "A tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush." If you want to go gather figs, you go to a fig tree. You don't go to a thorn bush. Why? How difficult is this to understand? Because thorn bushes don't produce figs. If you want figs, you go to a fig tree. And you know, not all fig trees are good fig trees. We know of the account where Jesus himself cursed a fig tree, pronounced a divine malediction upon a tree. And the Bible tells us that when he did it, it wasn't even the season for figs. So, if there's ever an event in the Bible where it seems that we see an arbitrary judgment of God in Christ, it was when Jesus cursed this fig tree. It's like Jesus was hungry and he saw a fig tree that was in bloom and leaf, and he walked over. There wasn't any figs there. And so he's so frustrated, he was looking forward to that tasty morsel on the tree, and there weren't any figs. And so out of his frustration, he uses his supernatural power to curse this poor innocent tree that then shrivels up and dies at his command.

When I was in seminary, I had the opportunity to study under an archaeological scholar who was an expert on the customs of Palestine. He explained this text to us. He says, in Palestine, there are many, many varieties of figs, and the vast majority of those fig trees that grow in Palestine bring their fruit in a particular season. There is such a thing as fig season. But not all fig trees bear figs in the fig season. There are those few rare varieties of fig trees that bear their figs outside of fig season. And when they do, they're regarded as a delicacy. And on this one occasion, Jesus saw a fig tree from a distance, and it was in leaf. And the sure sign in Palestine of the presence of figs is the presence of leaves. If the fig tree has leaves, then it will also have figs. So the Lord said, "Ah, here's one of these fig trees with this unusual variety of figs." And he walked over, and there were leaves, but no figs. The tree was a hypocrite. The tree gave the outward signs of fruit, but no fruit. And Jesus used that as a prophetic object lesson to describe not fig trees, but people who give the appearance of fruit but have no fruit. And we're called to be fruit-bearing trees in season and out of season.

"Nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush." Again, if you want to plant a vineyard and raise a choice crop of grapes, you don't start with bramble bushes. You need vines that will produce grapes. And so Jesus says, "A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good. An evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil."

It's interesting that the Greek word here for treasure is the word "thesauro," from which we get the English word "thesaurus." If you've ever had to do any writing, you know that you not only have to have a dictionary on your desk, but you need a thesaurus, or otherwise you're left with a poverty-stricken vocabulary. A thesaurus is a collection of the treasury that is ours in human language. And Jesus uses this same term of a treasure, a storehouse. And that in everybody's heart, there is a thesaurus. Maybe not in everybody's desk, but there is in everybody's heart. And that thesaurus is either a storehouse or a treasury of goodness, or it is a storehouse of corruption. And the Old Testament tells us that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Jesus is telling us what a man treasures in his heart determines what he is.

And so I close this morning by asking you to examine your own hearts, to look at the bank account that is hidden from eyesight, to examine the own thesaurus that you have in your soul, and ask, "What kind of vocabulary is in it? Is it the vocabulary that demonstrates and manifests the fruit of true faith? Or is it the vocabulary of the lie and the false profession?" I can read your faces, but I can't read your heart. Only God can read our hearts, and only God knows what's in that storehouse, what's in that thesaurus in our souls. But we can see fruit.

Let's pray. Our Father and our God, forgive us when we are fruitless. Enable us to be fruitful and productive as your children. For we ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

This morning, we continue now with our study of the gospel according to St. Luke. And we are now beginning chapter 6. And I will be reading verses 1-5.

"Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that he went through the grain fields. And his disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. And some of the Pharisees said to them, 'Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?' But Jesus answering them, said, 'Have you not even read this? What David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he went into the house of God and took and ate of the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat.' And he said to them, 'The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.'"

This brief passage is one that is pregnant with theological significance and for our understanding of the person of Christ. The record comes to us through the supervision and inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. Let us receive it for the full weight of authority that it carries. Let us pray.

And now, oh Lord, again we ask for the presence of your Spirit of truth to illumine these things for our understanding, that in our growth of understanding of Jesus, we might come to love him more purely and to follow him more closely. For we ask these things in his name. Amen.

Once again, Luke tells us of a conflict that arises between Jesus and the Pharisees. And this time again, it occurs on a Sabbath day. We read the somewhat innocuous report that Jesus was walking through one of the grain fields with his disciples, and they plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. Now, what kind of grain this was is a question. Many believe that it was that these were ears of corn, and that the disciples plucked a few ears of corn from this corn field. And to get the kernels loose from the ear, they rubbed the corn cobs in their hands to free the kernels so that they could eat them. They didn't have the opportunity to cook them and smear them with butter and salt the way we do in our culture. But in any case, while the disciples were busy picking corn, the Pharisees were busy picking nits, which was their custom. And they began to nitpick this action that Jesus and his disciples were involved in.

Now, keep this in mind that according to the Deuteronomic law of the Old Testament, it was indeed permissible for passersby to go into a corn field or a grain field and help themselves to the basic necessities that were available there. Of course, sojourners were not allowed to come in and harvest the whole crop and steal it from the farmer, but this was part of the broader principles of gleaning and the like that were set forth in the Old Testament. So, by no means were Jesus and his disciples breaking the law of God. But we remember that the Pharisees were not content for the law of God to stand by itself. But they had to add all kinds of details to their interpretation of what was permitted and what was allowed in terms of Sabbathkeeping. And they added literally over a thousand specifications in their extreme cases to their traditions in defining, according to their understanding, what could or could not be done on the Sabbath day. And according to their traditions, Jesus had violated the Sabbath in terms of the prohibition against unnecessary labor on the Sabbath day. For by picking an ear of corn, Jesus and his disciples were guilty of harvesting. And by rubbing the corn together, they were guilty of threshing on the Sabbath day. And so there the Pharisees were, shaking their finger once again in the face of Jesus. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not allowed to do this. You know, it's a wonder that Jesus, being God incarnate, didn't at this point have enough and just unleash the full power of his deity on these rascals. But in any case, he patiently answered their objection and reminded them of Old Testament history by calling attention to the account in the book of 1 Samuel of an event that took place in the life of David and his comrades, that when they were very hungry and had no food available to them, they went into the tabernacle and into the holy place, where the temple of showbread was, not into the holy of holies, but there this showbread that was on the altar as part of the ceremonies of Old Testament worship. David, realizing this was the only food nearby that would be available for him and for his comrades, he went in and took the bread from the altar and fed himself and his soldiers with it. And Jesus obviously shows his approval for what David and his men had done in the Old Testament, because Jesus is enunciating the principle that no ceremony outweighs the fundamental needs of human life. David and his men were not involved in an act of vandalism or just in a frivolous way helping themselves to the food that was in the altar, but they were eating because they had genuine hunger and were enabled to use this food that was available to them and still be working in the honor of God. And so what Jesus does simply is rebukes the Pharisees for their failure to understand what David had done in the Old Testament and for their failure to be concerned about the needs of Jesus and his disciples with respect to the elementary matters of food.

However, this passage is so much more about what Jesus and his disciples did and how he answered the criticism of the Pharisees for what they did. Because in this narrative and on this event, Jesus makes a pronouncement that is overwhelming in its importance for us and for our understanding of him. He said to the Pharisees, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

Now, we could spend the next six months exploring the depths and the riches of this one statement that Jesus makes on this occasion to the Pharisees. And I'm going to divide it into two parts. The first part is where Jesus calls himself once again the Son of Man. We've heard him do this before. We remember when he announced the forgiveness of sins for the paralytic. The Pharisees were all over him for that. And Jesus said on that occasion, "I do this that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins."

Now, in previous years, we've looked at the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John. And so, this designation for Jesus, Son of Man, is not strange or unusual to us if we've been here for any length of time or if we've studied the scriptures to any degree. But at the risk of boring you, I'd like to go back and rehearse some of the significance of the use of this title for Jesus. Just in this last week, I had two occasions to think about it. On one, I've received a letter, a lengthy letter from a man who was severely chastising me for teaching people the terrible heresy of the Trinity and of the deity of Christ. And he was saying that the Bible doesn't teach the deity of Christ, and nowhere does the New Testament affirm the deity of Christ, and so on. And he went through all of his arguments for his Unitarianism. But in any case, I did respond once, and then when he came back, I let it go the second time, which I usually do. But in any case, also at a weekly Bible study of some men that we had this week, this question of the significance of this title, Son of Man, arose. And so we looked at it there as well. And to remind you that if we count up the times in which Jesus is described in the New Testament by this title or that title, and we look at the numerical frequency, we see that far and away the number one title that is ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament is the title Christ, or Christos. It's used so often that we sometimes think that Christ is Jesus' last name. Jesus Christ. No, that is Jesus is his name. Christ is his title, which is the New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament word for Messiah. So when the New Testament talks about Jesus Christ, it means Jesus Messiah, Jesus the Anointed One. That's the number one title that is ascribed to Jesus.

The second most frequently given title to Jesus in the New Testament is the title Lord, which is extremely significant because of the way in which it is expressed in the New Testament by use of the term *kurios*. The use of the title Lord for Jesus corresponds to the Old Testament title *Adonai* that is given exclusively to God as his supreme title. When the Bible says, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth," what the Hebrew is saying is, "O Yahweh," that's his name, "our Adonai," that's his supreme title, "how majestic is your name." So that the highest title that is given to God in the Old Testament, in terms of the Greek translation of the Hebrew, is the title Lord. And we recall Paul's writing to the Philippians saying, "Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, took his equality with God, not as something to be tenaciously grasped or held on to, but he emptied himself, entered into his humiliation, took upon himself the form of a servant, became obedient even unto death." And you know how Paul goes on to say, "Wherefore hath God highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name." The Father gives to the Son the name that is the highest name that can be given to anyone. Then Paul says, "So at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father." The name that is above every name is not the name Jesus. It's that title Lord, Adonai, *kurios*. That's the title that is given to Jesus. That's the second most frequent title ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament.

In third place, in terms of numerical frequency, is the title Son of Man. Now, what's strange, extraordinary about this, I don't have my one book that I use for this occasion at home. I think my son has it. But in any case, I believe that the numbers are correct that this title, Son of Man, occurs in the New Testament for Jesus 92 times. And that only gets it to third place in terms of frequency. But the extraordinary thing is that of those 92 references to Jesus as the Son of Man, 89 of them are from the lips of Jesus himself. And what does that tell you? That tells you that in terms of numerical frequency for what Jesus calls himself, Son of Man is number one.

Well, what does it mean? Well, we know that the Bible calls Jesus Son of God and Son of Man. We know that the church's confession is such that we believe that Christ is fully man and fully God, truly man and truly God. That he has a divine nature and a human nature. And so we are tempted to look at these titles in this manner and to think, "Oh, well, Son of God, that must refer to his deity, and Son of Man must refer to his humanity." Well, that's a vast oversimplification. Because although the title Son of God does have some reference to Jesus' deity, being the only begotten of the Father, nevertheless, the title also refers to his human work of obedience, because to be called a son of God biblically is to be describing one who is obedient to God. "You are the son of whom you obey," Jesus said. So the Son of God title doesn't refer exclusively to deity. It also incorporates an element of his humanity. And in the same manner, the title Son of Man, though it has an element of reference to his humanity, the dominant reference to that title is to his deity.

Let's take just a moment to go back to the Old Testament, to Daniel chapter 7, where we read Daniel's vision of the Ancient of Days, beginning in verse 9, where he writes, "I watched until thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days, that's the title for God the Father, was seated. His garment was white as snow. The hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame. Its wheels a burning fire. And a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. And a thousand thousands ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened." And then he goes on to say in verse 13, "I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with clouds of heaven, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed."

Now, a lot of people think that this reference to the Son of Man refers to Jesus' second coming at the end of the age. I don't think so. If we look at the book of Revelation, we see that the Son of Man there appears in heaven as he ascends into heaven on the *Shekinah* cloud of glory. And when he returns to heaven from which he came originally, the chorus in heaven begins to sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive honor and glory and dominion and power." And at the ascension, Jesus is elevated to the right hand of God. He goes to his investiture. He goes to his coronation. And he is seated at the right hand of the Father as the King of Kings and as the Lord of Lords.

Now, during his earthly ministry, he made the observation, "No one ascends into heaven except he who has descended from heaven." No one ascends into heaven except he who has descended from heaven. So when Jesus speaks of ascending into heaven, he's not merely talking about going up there. Enoch went up to heaven, and other people go to heaven when they die. So what does Jesus mean when he says, "No one ascends into heaven"? Well, here the word "ascend" has specific reference to his going up to a particular place for a particular reason. He's going again to his coronation. And the only one who ascends to be seated at the right hand of God is the one who first came down here from the presence of God. As Jesus prays in his high priestly prayer in John, "Lord, restore to me the glory I had with you from the foundation of the world."

So the title Son of Man, the way Jesus is using it, referring to himself, he's saying to the Pharisees, "I'm doing these things that you may know the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." The Son of Man is one who comes from heaven, who carries the full measure of his deity with him, and with that deity, the full authority that is associated with him. And so then we see the second part of the statement: "that you might know the Son of Man, this heavenly being, this divine being, is the Lord of the Sabbath."

What Jesus never uttered words more startling to the ears of the Pharisees when he said that to them. We ask ourselves, when was the Sabbath day established? We know that it was part of the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Sinai. And some people think that the sanctity of the Sabbath was established with the covenant that God made with his people through Moses as the mediator there on Sinai in the Ten Commandments. No, no, no, no, no. Though the Sabbath is part of the Ten Commandments, it's not established at Sinai. It's not instituted at Sinai. It's instituted in creation. The Sabbath is a creation ordinance established by God in his original work, where he worked for six days creating all that there was, and on the seventh day he rested, and he hallowed it. He sanctified it. The Sabbath was sanctified in creation. And the only one who had the authority to hallow the Sabbath day in the work of creation were not the birds of the air, or the fish of the sea, or the creatures that God made in his own image. Only the Creator had the authority to institute and consecrate the Sabbath day. So do you get the inference? Only the Creator can be Lord of the Sabbath day. And here is the Lord of the Sabbath day, the one who made all things, now in his incarnation, is being challenged by these Pharisees for his behavior on the Sabbath day. And he's saying to them, "What? You're telling me what I can do on the Sabbath day? Who do you think made the Sabbath day?" He didn't say it quite that way. That's the way I would have said it, but he didn't say it that way. But that's the import of what Jesus is saying to them. You see now why they couldn't wait to kill him as a blasphemer. Jesus is saying, "I decide what is lawful and what is not lawful on the Sabbath day."

You know, another controversy that rages throughout Christendom and didn't end centuries ago is the question of which day is the proper day in which Christians come together to worship. We know that the original Sabbath in Israel was established on the seventh day of the week. And now Christians almost universally worship God in solemn assembly on the first day of the week, rather than on the seventh day of the week. The Sabbath cycle is still maintained, one and seventh, because that's what Sabbath means. But now it's the first day rather than the seventh day. Why? Because the Lord of the Sabbath was resurrected on the first day of the week. And in his resurrection, proved the ultimate intent and purpose of the original Sabbath day, by which God provides for his people a time of rest, pointing forward to the future time when his people would enter into their rest by resurrection. And now the Lord of the Sabbath is raised on the first day of the week. And so the early church came together to worship, to celebrate the sacraments, and to hear the word of God on the Lord's Day, on the Lord of the Sabbath's day, which is now the first day of the week.

All these things and so much more are contained in this title, Son of Man, and this claim by our Lord that he, as the Son of Man, is the Lord of the Sabbath. This is a clear declaration of the deity of Christ, that the one who went into the grain field to feed himself and his friends is the one who has come down from heaven, the only one who ever ascended to heaven to be installed at the right hand of the Father as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It is this Son of Man that we serve and worship on his day.

Let's pray. Father and our God, we thank you for this marvelous declaration of our Lord. We pray that as we understand it more deeply, that our image of Jesus and his importance will be greatly enlarged, and our hearts will be filled with a desire to worship him and to serve him as our King, as our Redeemer, and as our Lord. For we ask it in his name. Amen.

In this session, I want to consider further what we call in theology the divine initiative, referring to that first step of salvation that is brought to pass in our lives unilaterally and exclusively by the power of God. And we see this in this passage in Ephesians 2 that I have made occasional reference to, and I'd like to spend a little bit more time on it now. Let's look, if we may, at chapter 2 of Ephesians, and where Paul says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." And among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

What we find in this passage are descriptive terms of the radical character of man's fallenness. We've talked about moral inability. We have avoided the use of the language of Calvinism, which describes man's situation as that of total depravity, a term that has become very, very controversial in Christian circles and is part of the famous acrostic that Calvinists use to delineate the so-called five points of Calvinism: TULIP. T standing for Total Depravity, U for Unconditional Election, L for Limited Atonement, I for Irresistible Grace, and P for Perseverance of the Saints. But usually, you don't get further than the T before the controversy boils over. And here's one of those occasions where acrostics, which are little devices that function as aids for our memory, sometimes do more damage than they're worth. Because "total depravity" is a very misleading term. People confuse total depravity with what we would call utter depravity, that is, that man is as bad as he could possibly be. But I don't know anybody who believes that no matter how sinful we are, we can always conceive of ourselves of having done worse sins than we have done, and even sin more often than we in fact do. So there's none of us who is utterly depraved. The term "total depravity" was coined to mean that sin affects the whole person. That the total essence of our humanity is fallen. That is, our minds are fallen, our wills are fallen, our bodies are fallen. The whole person is caught up in this fallenness. I prefer to speak of radical corruption. That the problem is that turns TULIP into RULEUP and ruins the acrostic. But I like the term radical corruption because the meaning of radical historically is that it comes from the Latin word *radix*, which means root. And the point of radical corruption is that our fallenness is not just a tangential thing or a peripheral thing, an accidental blemish that's merely on the surface of our humanity, but sin is something that goes to the very core of our existence. It penetrates to the root of the tree.

Now, here in this text, Paul is giving some statements that indicate the seriousness of our fallenness, where he says, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins." Elsewhere, he speaks of being under the power of sin, in bondage to sin, children of wrath, children of the devil, that sort of thing. It's not a very pleasant picture of natural fallen man. But again, he says that this was our previous state, that we were dead in sins and trespasses, in which you formerly walked. How did we walk? We walked according to the course of this world. We walked the way the world walks, which is not in the way that God would have us to walk. Earlier, Paul had spoken of the fact that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none even who does good. There is none who seeks after God. We are all together unprofitable. We have all gone out of the way." You remember that Christians were first called "people of the way." But our natural way is not God's way. We walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That is, we were being obedient and loyal to whom? To Satan. He's the prince of the power of the air. And we walked according to the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest. That's a very, very grim portrait of man's fallenness.

Now, the next word, I believe, is the most important word in the New Testament with respect to this doctrine of God's sovereign grace. I think it's so important that, and I've harped on this theme so many times that in one class I was teaching, a woman went to the trouble and the bother to embroider a sign that spelled out this word for me. This word: But God. The gospel is only good news when we understand the bad news. The gospel is only gospel when we first understand the law and our situation under the law. Here we are, dead in sin and trespasses, walking according to the flesh, the lusts of the flesh, and so on, walking in like those who are under the spirit of disobedience, children of wrath. But God, but God, who is rich in mercy, not "but we," who still had an island of righteousness, finally lifted ourselves up by our bootstraps or inclined ourselves to change our ways. But man, who is morally powerful, said no to this wicked course and quickened himself from the dead. That's not what the Bible says. It says, "But God, who is rich in mercy, has made us alive, quickened us, even when we were dead in our transgressions."

Now, when I hear evangelical Christians talk about what happens in conversion, I hear two analogies frequently, illustrations designed to communicate to our minds what really happens. Maybe you've heard them. The first goes like this: That fallen man is not healthy. He's very, very sick. Indeed, he is sick unto death, and he is in the terminal illness ward of the hospital. There's nothing that man can possibly do to heal himself. He's almost comatose. Death is certain. Unless a medicine is administered to that man, he will surely die. So God provides the medicine, and the nurse puts the medicine, pours it out on a spoon. God has, well, God himself pours the medicine on the spoon, and God himself comes to that man, in his parched lips, in his semicomatose condition, as he's lying on his deathbed, and he puts that spoon right at the lips of the man. But at that moment, the man can either accept the medicine or

refuse the medicine. And if he opens his mouth, God will pour the medicine in his mouth and it will save him. But if he keeps his lips clenched tightly, then he will not receive the necessary cure. So that analogy shows that man is in very, very serious condition, but he's still alive.

What I hear God saying is he comes into the room after the doctor has pronounced that man dead. What I hear Paul saying here is that God quickens us when we are dead. A better analogy would be that the man has gone under for the third time and he's at the bottom of the sea and God dives in the water and he takes that dead man, that corpse from the bottom of the sea and brings him out onto the dry land and he leans over and he gives him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and he breathes his life into that man and that man is restored from the dead. That's what the Bible is saying about the divine initiative. That that first step of quickening from the dead, from the flesh unto spirit, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light is accomplished by God, not by me. And of course, after God quickens us, then we choose, then we believe, then we embrace Christ, we repent, we do all of those things because we're alive now to the things of God. But the first step, the initiative, the being made alive from the dead is the work of God and the work of God alone. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

All right. All right. Well, one of the the the deepest questions that this raises when we think about this divine initiative, if God is the one who has to rescue that dead man from the bottom of the sea, if God is the one who has to uh not merely administer medicine, but resurrect a course, a corpse, then what in the world is the purpose of evangelism? Isn't that a question we all think about and raise that in light of God's sovereignty and in light of the whole concept of predestination? If God has decreed from all eternity that certain people are saved, then certainly those people will be saved with or without my bearing witness, with or without my preaching the gospel. Why then should we be concerned about evangelism?

Uh, my favorite story about this took place when I was in seminary, when I was studying in a classroom with Dr. John Gersonner at Pittsburgh Seminary, who's the king of the predestinarians. And uh, there were about 20 of us in the class and we were sitted in seated in a semicircle. And he said, "All right, gentlemen, if it's true that God sovereignly predestines a certain fixed number of people to be saved, and it's by an immutable decree, then why should we be involved in evangelism?" And now he left that question hanging in the air and he started to call on the students to answer the question. And I'll never forget how relieved I was because I was at the extreme right of that semi-circle and he started on the left side and I thought, "Oh boy, am I glad I don't have to answer that." So he looks at the first student, he says, "Well, Mr. So and so, what what would you say?" And he said, "Gee, Dr. Gersonner, you know, I don't know. I've always wondered about that myself." And so he struck out. He goes to the next fell and the next fell says, "Beats me." He goes to the next all the way down the line and they were getting perilously close to me. And there was this sense of expectation mounting in the classroom. I felt like Socrates in one of Plato's dialogues where after all these other people, these lesser mortals give answers to these profound questions and they sound okay until Socrates speaks and then he blows everybody away. And I thought, "Uh oh, I'm going to be on the hot seat here." Well, sure enough, they went all the way around the room. Nobody could answer Dr. Gersner's question. And so he came to me and I'm squirming. So I tried to answer it. And I said, "Well, you know, I'm sure this isn't what you're looking for, Dr. Gerson. I know that there's something far more profound than this that must be the answer to this question. But one small reason why, you know, we ought to be involved in evangelism is that uh, I said, 'Well, you know, well, Jesus commands us to uh, do evangelism, doesn't he?'" And Gersner started to laugh, you know, in his diabolical way. He he said, "Of course, Mr. Destroy. What could possibly be more an insignificant reason to do evangelism than that uh, than that Jesus commands you to? That you're that this that the savior of your soul and the Lord God Almighty should utter a command. And you think that that may be possibly you got one small reason why you should be in your gaze." And boy, the more he went on, you know, the smaller I was going in that chair and I said, "Whoa, wait a minute." But I never forgot the point. He said, "The chief reason why we do evangelism in light of the sovereignty of God is because God is sovereign." And God has not only sovereignly decreed the end, that is the goal of the redemption of people. But he also has sovereignly decreed the means toward that end. He has chosen the foolishness of preaching as the means by which he will bring people to salvation. And he has commanded his church to carry out that program of evangelism. And he said, "Look, I'll take care of the election, but you do the preaching. You do the witnessing. That is your responsibility."

Now, does he need me? No, he doesn't need me. No, he doesn't need me. God doesn't need me to fulfill his plan. He could do it without me. He has the power to do it without me. Okay? But he has chosen to do it with me and by me and through me and with you and by you and through you. So we see here that evangelism is first of all a duty, but second of all, and we need to understand this, evangelism is an unspeakable privilege. What an what a privilege to I mean, I I was once reading a book on fundraising. I need to read books like that every now and then. They're dreadfully dull and boring. And this fellow who was writing the book had been the head of the uh fundraising campaign for Harvard University. And he said there's some princ fundamental principles you need to understand about fundraising. And he said the first law is this: You have to be aware of the fact that every human being wants to have a significant part in a significant enterprise. So if you give the people the vision for what you're doing and let them become a part of it, then they will respond because they want to be a part of a significant cause, if you will. And so he, of course, the author of the book was saying, "Exploit that, you know, use that, keep that in mind." Well, I think it's true though, isn't it? That we want our lives to count. We don't want to be meaningless ciphers in this world. We want to participate in significant things. Would it be something if we could say, "I could look at my left hand and say, 'See that ring?' That ring indicates that I played for the Super Bowl champions in uh in 1975." And people would look at me and say, "Really? Isn't that wow? That now, that's significant." I don't have a ring like that. All I do in my life, I don't play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm not a member of the President's cabinet. All I do is work every day for the King of Kings. That's all I do. And what could be more insignificant than that? All I get to do in my work, and I get paid to do this, is to work in the most significant enterprise that God has ever created. And to work for the building of the kingdom of God, for the preaching of the gospel, for the nurturing of the saints is the highest calling in the universe. That's why I was wrankled one day when some student said to me when after I'd uh worked in the church for a couple years and then was spending more time was teaching in seminary and running around the country doing conferences and all of this and this student looked at me and with stars in his eyes. He was a struck. He got to meet in the flesh somebody that he'd heard speaking at a conference somewhere and his picture on a book or something like that and it was like his card catalog came to life and and and he was just thunder struck, you know, and he said, "Gee," he said, "what was it like for you when you were just a pastor?" I've got I said, "What do you mean, 'just a pastor'?" Do you know why I'm not a pastor? Because I don't have what it takes to be a pastor. It's a whole lot easier to run around from town to town and preach and then run than to stand there with the same people year after year after year and going from the first level to the second level to the third level, nurturing, holding their hands when they die and all of that and and have them be cutting you apart every week and you have to bear it. And I said, "I just couldn't handle that." I have nothing but profound respect and admiration for the pastor because I believe that's the highest calling that there is in this world. It's a privilege. It's not just a duty. It's a privilege to be able to spend one's life in the service of Christ.

Notice what Paul says in uh chapter 10 of Romans. It says in verse 11, "For the scripture says, 'Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.'" Man, what a statement. No, when we come to faith and we place our faith, we place our trust, we place our confidence in Christ as our savior, everyone knows what it means to have placed their trust or confidence in something or someone that let them down. That's devastating. But whoever places their faith or confidence in Christ will never be disappointed. For there's no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord over all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him. Verse 13, "For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Now, we've labored throughout this series that no one the point that no one will call upon the Lord unless the Lord first quickens him. But what what does God quicken us for? But to cry out to Christ, to call upon the Lord. And whoever does that, whoever calls it, you don't know whether you're elect or not elect, but do you want Christ? Huh? You call upon him. Let the question of the mystery of elections hang up in the clouds for a minute. What's the status of your heart right now? If in your heart you want a savior, if in your heart you want Christ, if you want him, call upon him. And if you call upon him, there's nothing more certain under this sun than that he will hear your call and that he will respond to it and you will be saved.

But then Paul asks this question, "How will they call upon him in whom they've not believed?" Before you call upon somebody to to redeem you, you have to first have some degree of confidence that the person's uh uh able to perform the task. I'm not going to I'm not going to ask Archie Bunker to save my soul because I don't think he has the ability to save my soul. I have to first believe that he is able. "How will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?" This is pretty simple logic here, isn't it? "And how shall they hear without a preacher?" You don't call on a savior to savior if if you don't believe that he is the savior. And you can't believe that if he is a savior if you've never even heard about him. And you're not going to hear about him unless somebody tells you about him. Then he goes on to say, "And there's no preacher unless somebody sends the preacher. And you may not be able to be gifted in evangelism, but you're able to contribute to the sending of the evangelist." Just in parenthesis, only 4% of Christians, evangelical Christians in the United States of America, tithe. And you wonder why the great commission has not been taken place. Not because it's blocked or thwarted by predestination. It's blocked and thwarted by crass disobedience among the people of God with their money. 4% four out of a 100red professing evangelicals tithe to get the job done. But the point I want you to see here is Paul's quotation from the Old Testament. It says, "Faith comes from where?" It says, "How they preach unless they are are sent? Just as it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.'" Strange, strange thing. I've heard people listening to Billy Graham or listening to other great preachers and say, "What a marvelous voice he has." Or people are are worse than that. I mean, I get more letters about my hairdo than I do about my theology. And people will say, "Well, why are you wearing those glasses?" Or, "Why do you wear that tie or why do you wear the same pair of pants every day in this in this series?" I'm striking a nerve here. Uh, okay. So, why people notice those things, but have you ever heard uh somebody in the congregation look up at the minister and say, "My, doesn't he have beautiful feet?" Anybody ever talk about Billy Graham's feet? The greatest evangelist in our day. I've never heard a single person refer to his feet. But in the ancient world, the word gospel first meant good message or good news. And communications of critical events was a very, very serious matter to the ancient person. Where the armies would go out into battle and not come back for two years and the people would wait for two years and not know whether they won or lost. So anytime there was a a pivotal battle, if uh the forces won or if they lost, they would dispatch a messenger, a marathon runner, who would run back to the hometown. And as he would run into the town, then he would announce the outcome of this decisive battle to the people. And the pe and the town's people would have lookouts posted at at high points to scan the horizon to watch for the coming messenger. And they would see the dust start to fly long before they would see a person. And they would that would get their attention and they'd stare into the distance and watch the the configurations of the dust cloud. And they would watch and the first thing they would see would be the way the feet were pumping up and down as they ran up the mountain and down the other side of the mountain. And those who were good at being lookouts could tell before the messenger arrived whether it was good news or bad news. Because the man that was running to declare victory would run with his chest out and his arms pumping, a smile on his face and his feet really going. How many of you are joggers? Do you know what the survival shuffle is? You know that's when you're going jogging like this. The feet aren't even getting off the ground. Right. You say, "I'm Yeah, I'm running. I'm still running." It's the survival shuffle is what it's called. All right. And I have experienced that more than once. And that's the way guys who came with bad news would approach the city gates. Forlorn, discouraged, cast down. But then you see somebody whose feet were flying, his socks were on fire from the distance with good news. And the lookout would throw his hat into the air and say, "We won." And so the prophet says, "How beautiful on the mountain are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace." I know that it was God who brought me to Christ, but he used a man who told me the gospel. And I will never forget that man. And no matter what that man ever does, I will always love him because humanly he cared enough to be the instrument that God was pleased to use to bring me to Jesus Christ. How would you like to know that God used your testimony, your act of charity, your bearing of witness to your neighbor as the catalyst for that person's eternal salvation? Why evangelize? Because it's a command and it's the highest privilege that God can give to us.

Ask that we turn our attention to Mark chapter 11 verses 1-11 and I'll ask the congregation please to stand for the reading of the word of God.

"Now when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. And he said to them, 'Go into the village opposite you, and as soon as you have entered it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it.' And if anyone says to you, 'What are you doing?' Say, 'The Lord has need of it, and immediately he will send it here.' So they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it. But some of those who stood there said to them, 'What are you doing loosing the colt?' And they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded. So they let them go. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their clothes on the road. And others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!' And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when he had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12."

We're grateful this Christmas Eve morning to be able to hear a word that comes to us from God himself. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, give us understanding hearts to the significance of this moment in the life of our Lord and also what it means for us today. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

At the beginning of chapter 11, we start virtually the last one-third of the gospel of Mark. And one of the interesting points to me, at least, of this division in the text is that this third of the entire gospel focuses attention on the last seven days, presumably of Jesus' life. And like manner in John's gospel, if you recall when we preached through it from start to finish, that fully half of that gospel focuses on the last week or so of Jesus' life. Because the gospel writers understood that what happens from the time Jesus arrives in Jerusalem till the time he dies is raised and ascends into heaven, all of the energy of God's promise of redemption is focused in that short period of time.

Now, it's Christmas Eve morning and traditionally on this day we have some way of celebrating what we call the advent of Jesus. That is, the arrival or the coming of Jesus to this world. But when he came into this world as a baby, he was born to be a king. That's why we talk about the marvelous gifts that were spread at the feet of the Christ child and the greetings that came from on high from the angelic announcements that a king was being born, the king of the Jews, that frightened Herod so deeply. Well, now after 30 years or so, we have the advent of that king into David's royal city. And do you see the connection then between his advent into the world and his advent into Jerusalem for the purpose of fulfilling the kingly prophecies of the Christ child?

So let's look at this text. "When they drew near Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives." One technical point here is that it mentions first Bethphage, which means "house of unripe figs," and Bethany, which means "house of sorrow." That it seems as though in their journey to Jerusalem they first go through Bethphage and then to Bethany. And critical scholars look at the intersections of the roads today that come from the north into Jerusalem. They say the order is just reversed. First you have to go through Bethany, then you go through Bethphage before you can go to Jerusalem. Ah, but what these uh critics overlook was Jesus wasn't traveling on modern highways. He was traveling on a Roman road. And we know now that the Roman road went just as Mark said that it did. But that's just an aside for those of you who like those little points of dispute. In any case, they came to the Mount of Olives and he sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the village opposite and when you enter it, you're gonna find a colt tied there on which no one has ever set. Loose it and bring it." And so you hear the instructions that Jesus gives to his disciples at this point. Go to the next village, which probably was Bethphage and the house of unripe figs. And he said, "You walk into that village and you're gonna find a colt that's tied up that has never been ridden and you untie it and you bring it to me." Now, that sounds strange, doesn't it? And it's almost as Jesus is telling his disciples to go and steal a donkey for him. But that's not what's going on at all. What he is consciously doing is fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament where on more than one occasion the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah said that the Messiah would enter the city riding on a donkey. We remember how the other gospel writers give a much more expansive report of what happens on Palm Sunday. This is the most brief account that we have in Mark, typically of Mark's fashion of hurrying through things. But we think for example of Zechariah 9 where it says, "Rejoice, Jerusalem, your king comes unto you, lowly and riding on a donkey." And so that prophecy was well known among the people who were waiting for their coming king. Most kings in the ancient world rode on great steeds, magnificent horses, like Alexander the Great, but not so the king of the Jews. He was going to come riding on a donkey. And that prophecy that we find in Zechariah really has its roots much earlier in the Old Testament. And let me just take a second to refer back to that. So this morning I'm going to be a bit of a flipper. I hear sometimes people say, "Oh, I listened to that preacher last week and he's a flipper." A flipper is one that keeps flipping between different uh chapters in the Bible and gets everybody confused. But let's look for a second in chapter 49 of Genesis. What we have there is the record of the patriarchal blessing that Jacob pronounced upon his sons. And you remember that the firstborn son was Reuben, but he was denied the patriarchal blessing because of his sin. And then Simeon and Levi were likewise denied. And when he comes then to the great patriarchal blessing in chapter 49 in verse 8, listen to what he said: "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, and your father's children shall bow down before you. For Judah is a lion's whelp. From that day forward, throughout the rest of sacred scripture, the coming Messiah would be called the lion of Judah. It goes on, Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down. He lies as a lion. And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter, that is the sign of royalty, shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people, binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes." So you see that deeply rooted in the Jewish consciousness of the Old Testament was this future hope of the king who would enter Mount Zion riding on a donkey as their coming Messiah. And so now Mark tells us that this is happening and Jesus instructs his disciples, go and get that colt that is tied there and untie it and bring it to me.

Now in the ancient world, including Israel, they had a concept of eminent domain that was much more limited than we have in our country. But one of the prerogatives of the king was to commandeer a beast of burden whenever he needed it. And so Jesus, as the king, exercises that right here and commands his disciple to go get that colt. Now, something else is in view here, that it was a colt that had never been ridden. Now, I don't know if they have rodeos in Israel where they ride bucking donkeys to see how good you are, but the donkeys, just like the horses, had to be broken in order to become functional beasts of burden. And the whole principle again in Jewish history was that no one was ever allowed to ride on the king's horse or to ride on the king's donkey. Only the king was allowed to ride on. That's why Jesus specifies here, "You get me a colt that has never been ridden because he's the colt now prepared for the kingdom." And he says, "If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' Say, 'The Lord has need of it,' and immediately he will send it here."

Now, there's a certain ambiguity here when Jesus said, "If anybody asks you what you're doing, you just say the Lord the curious needs it." Now, that word can mean simply "sir," or it can mean "master," or it can have the more exalted significance of the supreme ruler and sovereign over the people. It's rare that Mark uses that term with respect to Jesus, but here Jesus uses it for himself. And my guess, and it's not a wild guess, is that he's not simply saying, "Tell them the master needs it," but he's saying, "Tell them that the sovereign one, the King of the Jews, requires that donkey, and immediately he will send it here." And so they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it. But some of them who stood there said to them, "What are you doing loosing the colt?" And so they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded, and they let them go. And then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it.

Now again, this the tale that when they brought the donkey to Jesus, his disciples took their garments and put the garments on the back of the donkey as a saddle, as it were, for Jesus. And then we are told in the other gospels as well that the people, when Jesus began his procession, took off their outer garments and threw them on the pathway of the donkey. So that on Palm Sunday, when Jesus makes his triumphal entry into the city, the donkey is walking over a red carpet, as it were, created by the clothes of the people. Now, that also has its roots in the Old Testament. If I were to say to you, "Who was the worst king in the Old Testament?" Would we have to debate it? Would you hesitate? Isn't there one name that stands above or below the name of every other king? King Ahab, with his consort, Jezebel, how they introduced radical paganism and idolatry into the royal court of Israel and how Ahab sought the life constantly of the prophet Elisha. And his wickedness was so great that his Ahab's wickedness was so great that finally God had enough of it and he announced to Elisha that he was going to replace Ahab. And so according to the commandments of God, Elisha took a vial of oil and gave it to one of the sons of the prophets and he said, "Go to the house of Jehu. For the Lord has commanded that Jehu be anointed king in place of Ahab." And so the prophet came to Jehu and explained to him what the word of God had commanded. And Jehu had no aspirations of royalty, nevertheless submitted to the word of God. And the prophet anointed his head with oil. And all of the followers of Jehu cried out, "Jehu is king!" And then they took off their garments from their outer garments and put them in the path of Jehu. So as that he came down the steps from his court, he walked over the garments of his people. That same principle at the anointing of the king is being used here when the people take off their garments and put them in front of Jesus.

Now we notice also that when Jesus is involved in this procession, this triumphal entry, it begins at Bethany. And Bethany is where the Mount of Olives is. And the Mount of Olives is something of a misnomer. There at the top of the Mount of Olives is the little village of Bethany. And it looks out across the Kidron Valley down to the city of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives is 300 feet higher than Jerusalem. It's just a big hill. It's not a great glacial mountain or anything like that. But anyway, the procession starts at Bethany. So what? On the Mount of Olives. So what? Well, back in 586, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of Jerusalem to Babylon, when Jerusalem fell, God gave a vision to the prophet Ezekiel. And the vision Ezekiel has, what he could see in his mind's eye, Jerusalem and the temple. And in that vision, beloved, he saw the glory of God rise up from the temple. And the glory of God departed from the east side of the city. And the glory of God went up the 300 feet and then came down on the Mount of Olives. When I was in Jerusalem, I stayed on the Mount of Olives overlooking the holy city. And I can remember one night standing out on the patio from our hotel and all the lights were illuminating the walls of Jerusalem and I looked down across that Kidron Valley. And I've told you before of of haunting memories I had of envisioning David fleeing the old city from Absalom, his son. But on another night, I was looking across the valley and looking into the city and and I remembered that vision of Ezekiel. And in my mind's eye, I saw the glory of God rising up from the temple, hovering, coming from the east gate, then going up to where I was on the Mount of Olives, and then coming down and landing there. Remember the story of Ichabod when the glory had departed from Israel. This was even a much worse moment of Ichabod, the departure of the glory of God as the people were now taken away into captivity. For the Jewish people, it was a holocaust of sorts, all surrounding the Mount of Olives.

Then we read, "Jesus began this journey and other people cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road." We look at that every year on Palm Sunday, of the waving of the palms and so on, and the people crying, "Hosanna," which means "Lord, save us now." "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Now, here's another little technical point you may or may not be interested in, that some scholars say that Mark compresses the time that Jesus spends in Jerusalem before his death. We celebrate Holy Week as starting on Palm Sunday and then on Friday is the crucifixion and then Sunday is the resurrection. But actually, John's gospel has Jesus in Jerusalem for four months before he's executed. And so the idea is that probably Mark is compressing this event and probably it really took place rather than in the spring, in the fall during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, where people characteristically had their palm branches as part of the celebration of that particular festival. We don't know for sure. But in any case, all of the gospels tell us that the people took these palm branches that were symbols of victory and waved them in the air, crying out, "Hosanna, Lord, save us now. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." That the song of the people when their king came riding to them lowly and on a donkey was the first singing of the song "Hosanna" that we sing almost every Sunday here at St. Andrews when we sing, "Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord."

But there's something very, very strange about Mark's version. After the "Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest," we read in verse 11, "And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple, and when he looked around at all the things there, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12." Mark's conclusion of this episode is anticlimactic. It's like, well, he got into Jerusalem, went to the temple, looked around, and went home, went back to Bethany, as if nothing significant had taken place. No, no, no. There's a little detail here that's crucial to our understanding of this event in the life of Jesus. You know, all along we've been waiting for Jesus to arrive in Jerusalem. He had set his face like a flint to Jerusalem. We've been looking at that since he announced to his disciples that he was going to the holy city to suffer and to die. But Jerusalem was not his ultimate destination. It was the penultimate destination. His destination wasn't just the city in general. His destination was the temple. He was going to the temple. He was going and looking around at the place where historically the sacrifices were offered. He was going to the temple that replaced the tabernacle, which in its own structure and its use was a living prophecy of the Messiah who was to come. Do you remember in John's gospel, he begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and then a little bit later in the prologue, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." Right? But that phrase, "he dwelt among us," literally in the text says, "he tabernacled among us." Because you see, Jesus is the tabernacle. He's the fulfillment of everything the tabernacle pointed to. He is the temple. "You can tear down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." He was speaking of himself because he is the temple. And so he goes to that place that he was born for in Bethlehem. And here is the supreme irony. In 586, Ezekiel saw the glory of God leave the temple, leave the holy city, and come down on Bethany at the Mount of Olives. And now the one whom the scriptures define as the brightness of the glory of God comes from Bethany, comes from the Mount of Olives, goes in the eastern gate, goes to the holy city, and goes to the temple. Do you see it? In 586, the glory of God left the temple, and now the glory of God comes back. But no one understood it that the King was the King of Glory who here is about to meet the destiny to which he was called and for which he was born. Do you see how Christmas is in some measure fulfilled on that Sunday in Jerusalem?

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the way in which every footstep of our Messiah was prepared in the ages and centuries before. That nothing was done without a warrant or without purpose, but he fulfilled all things perfectly in his person. Father, not just on Palm Sunday or on Holy Week, but every time we celebrate the first advent of Jesus, give us remembrance of his coming to Jerusalem as our King. Amen.