An Entrance Foretold
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
If you read through the Old Testament, you see that there were 42 kings and 1 queen between Israel and Judah—the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel.
Some of them were good kings and some of them were bad kings.
For example, Asa, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah were good kings.
On the other hand, Rehoboam and Manasseh were examples of bad kings.
What made them good or bad?
Well, in the case of Asa, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah, the Bible says this about them:
They “did what was right in the sight of the Lord.”
On the other hand, when it came to the bad kings, they “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”
So what ultimately determines the merit of their rule? Their character.
Because ultimately, their obedience to the Lord was fruit that was borne from their righteous character.
This morning, we see a King who is coming into Jerusalem, foretold by the prophet Zechariah.
And when you examine His character, it is clear that this is a good King.
He is a Righteous King.
He is a Saving King.
He is a Humble King.
And this righteous, humble, saving King will conquer.
The question for each of our souls is whether He will conquer in power or in grace.
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
Before I read our passage for the day, I want to spend a few moment giving some context for these verses.
Zechariah is prophesying to the people of Israel who have returned from Exile during the reign of Darius. d
Zechariah 9 is both a prophecy of judgment and salvation.
Judgment upon the enemies of Israel.
Salvation for the people of God.
The enemies mentioned are the traditional border enemies of Israel.
You have the Syrian enemies: (9:1-2)
Hadrach, Damascus and Hamath
You have the Phoenician enemies: (9:2-4)
Tyre and Sidon
And you have the Philistine enemies: (9:5-8)
Gaza, Ekron, Ashkelon and Ashdad
And while these are the traditional enemies of Israel, they truly represent any enemy of the people of God in this prophecy.
In the immediate sense, this prophecy seems to have found fulfillment in the early conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century.
However, we will see there is a more universal and final fulfillment of this prophecy to come in the latter half of this chapter.
The prophecy is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, the enemies of God’s people should be in dread.
On the other hand, the nation of Israel should rejoice greatly.
Because a good King is coming into Jerusalem.
A righteous, saving, humble King—who conquer every enemy and sit on David’s throne forever.
A king better than Asa. Better than Jehoshaphat. Better than Hezekiah.
Even better than King David.
Let’s read the passage.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
TWO INTERPRETATIVE FOUNDATIONS
TWO INTERPRETATIVE FOUNDATIONS
TEXTS EXPECTING DAVID
TEXTS EXPECTING DAVID
Before we get into this text and the way it relates to the scene recorded in all four Gospels in which Jesus enters into Jerusalem, we have to understand what Israel was expecting—or more specifically, who they were expecting.
There are many places where Messianic prophecy and expectation can be seen in the Old Testament, but for our purposes this morning, it is hard to imagine that any passage would be more complimentary than 2 Samuel 7.
In that passage, we see the Lord make a covenant with David.
He is promised David that Israel’s Messiah King will come from his line and sit on his throne and rule over God’s Kingdom forever.
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ”
Notice that the promise is not dependent on the goodness and faithfulness of David or the steadfastness of Israel.
It is a promise that is dependent upon the Lord.
TWO ARRIVALS, NOT ONE
TWO ARRIVALS, NOT ONE
Now here is the thing about Israel—they expected that when this Messiah appeared, all of this would happen at once.
He would come and take David’s throne and smash every enemy and rule forever, instituting unending peace for the people of God.
They expected that the King would come and when He arrived, the great day of the Lord would be upon the world.
He would enter into Jerusalem and His rule would be from sea to sea—immediately.
They did not foresee the mystery of the Gospel that has been revealed to us as New Testament believers—that Christ Jesus has two advents.
In the first, He came as the meek and lowly Lamb of God.
In the second, He will return as the fierce Lion of God—the Lion of Judah—judging the nations forever.
They did not foresee a crown of thorns preceding a crown of eternal glory.
But we are able to read Zechariah’s words with our New Covenant goggles on and see that in this passage, both Advents are being spoken of.
TWO FOUNDATIONS
TWO FOUNDATIONS
So these are two interpretative foundations for us this morning.
As we study, we must keep the promise to David in mind:
One born from his line is going to sit on his throne forever.
And as we study, we must keep in mind what we know to be true:
The Messiah’s first coming was a miraculous birth of poor means.
But that is not His only appearing.
For the Messiah’s second coming is a magnificent burst of preeminent majesty.
With these interpretative foundations laid, let’s examine the character of this King who enters into Jerusalem.
A RIGHTEOUS KING (v. 9)
A RIGHTEOUS KING (v. 9)
1. The Messiah is a righteous King (v. 9).
1. The Messiah is a righteous King (v. 9).
Unlike so many of the kings of Israel’s past, the Messiah who comes is a righteous king.
He is just in His kingly rule.
He is innocent. There is no charge of guilt that you can lay at his feet.
We could not say this about the best of Israel’s kings.
David was the diamond in the ring of Israel’s rulers and yet, we could not say he was a totally righteous king.
He proved that he was an imperfect, sinning king when he did not go out to war with his army and used his idle time to commit adultery with Bathsheba.
And then he further showed the reality of his clay feet by having her husband murdered in an effort to try and cover the whole thing up.
David proved his lack of righteousness in the parenting of his sons.
He struggled to keep his children walking in the path of godliness.
Amnon committed incest. Adonijah tried to steal the throne—as we will see in a moment. Absalom was murderous and rebellious.
And if you read 1 Kings 1, it seems like a lot of this could be because David spoiled his boys. Speaking of Adonijah, the text says:
1 Kings 1:6 (ESV)
His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?”
JC Ryle, commenting on this, called it David’s “over-indulgence.”
There was the foundation of all the mischief. David was an over-indulgent father—a father who let his children have their own way—and he reaped according as he had sown!
JC Ryle
I don’t point these things out to disparage David. Not at all.
Instead, I point them out to show that David is like us. Though he was a great king, he had great faults. He was a sinner in need of redemption.
But the Messiah is not this way.
He is comprehensively and completely righteous as the King of Israel.
The Psalms expected the Messiah to be this way in His character.
Psalm 72 was a song that Solomon wrote, asking for God’s blessing upon his reign, but as you read it, the Psalm looks beyond Solomon to a greater King to come. A King who judges with total rightness.
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
The judgments of the Messiah-King are righteous.
They are morally above scrutiny and reproach in every way.
And this sort of righteous rule is like a warm, rising sun over the people of God.
It is like a spring rain that brings life.
The God of Israel has spoken;
the Rock of Israel has said to me:
When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
So the Messiah is a King that Israel expected to come.
And the Messiah is a King of righteousness.
He rules with a scepter of iron in His hand and that iron has not an ounce of dishonesty or injustice in it.
Every bit of His active rule is as righteous as the heart of God Himself.
CHRIST THE RULING AND REIGNING MESSIAH
CHRIST THE RULING AND REIGNING MESSIAH
We know who this King is.
His name is Jesus.
One day He will return in righteousness, but even now, He rules and reigns in righteousness.
He has suffered and died and rose and ascended and as He told His disciples in Matthew 28, “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to Him.
He is Lord. He has the name above every name.
And we do not just know that this is Him because we learned it in Sunday School.
We know that the righteous King is Jesus because we have experienced Him.
His rule has come to our hearts and we have lived under His righteous reign firsthand.
What wrong has He ever done to you?
There are times as He rules over the world of our lives that we might want to cry out under His reign and say:
“This isn’t fair.”
“This should be different.”
“Why won’t You just answer my prayers the way I want? Why won’t you just grant my requests?”
We may think in our unrighteousness, that if we were the Righteous King, we would do the job better.
But true children of God walk with the King through the valleys and the night and the questions and on the other side they are able to look back and say, “You were right. You are the King of righteousness. There is no shadow of turning in your righteous rule and reign.”
We are able to look the maturity and advanced faith and deepened intimacy with God that our scars have brought and we are able to say with surety, “The King rules in righteousness.”
And one day, we will not just do this with the little world of our lives, but the whole universe.
We will look back at history and say, “The King was right. The Messiah is a King of Righteousness over all the days of the earth and all the years of eternity.”
THE MESSIAH IS A SAVING KING (v. 9)
THE MESSIAH IS A SAVING KING (v. 9)
Now, with that said, here is the thing about all of this talk of righteousness.
If we really understand the authority that is promised to the Messiah, His righteousness can be a bit frightening.
For example, if we go to Psalm 2, we read about the nations conspiring against the Lord and His Anointed—His King, who is His Son.
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
Who is this Anointed?
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
The Lord goes on to say that He has promised the nations to His Anointed Son, the Messiah.
And if the nations do not want to perish in the way, they must pay homage to the Son.
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
If the Messiah-King is righteous, then anyone who is in opposition to His righteousness will be judged as His enemy.
This puts us in a position of imminent danger with God’s Anointed.
Our sin against God is rebelliousness.
We are guilty of seeking to burst the bonds of the Father and the Son and cast away their cords as anyone.
Our lack of righteousness exposes our sinful position, which is no less than opposition.
If the Anointed One holds out His iron rod of judgment, we will not escape as innocent when our breaking of God’s good and perfect laws prove we are guilty. Unrighteous.
We need saving.
And the good news of Zechariah 9 is that the King of righteousness is also a King that possesses the very thing we need—salvation.
2. The Messiah is a saving King (v. 9).
2. The Messiah is a saving King (v. 9).
Zechariah doesn’t say that the King coming into Jerusalem saves as an act.
He says something different.
He says that he has salvation.
And what is implied in His coming to Zion—to Jerusalem—is that He means to share it, not keep it to Himself.
The original Hebrew gives us a little more meat than the English here.
It tells us that the Messiah has salvation because He is the object of salvation.
He has been victoriously saved, therefore He is able to save others.
He is able to share His salvation with Zion.
And when we think about Jesus, we know this is true of Him.
Let me show you an example from the Scriptures.
Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm and as you read it, it clearly foretells the Cross of Christ.
It speaks of the Messiah being poured out like water and have his bones pulled out of joint.
It talks of his heart being melted like wax and his strength drying up.
There are bull surrounding him and he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
So again—it is not hard to make the prophetic connection between King David’s words and King Jesus’ suffering at Calvary.
But will God leave His Messiah to die on a Cross and be eaten by the ravens? Of course not.
This is the One He is willed the nations to. This is His Anointed Son!
So listen to the suffering in Psalm 22:6-7
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
Again—that is the Cross.
But then listen to verse 8:
“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”
The Messiah trusts in Yahweh. Let Yahweh deliver Him and rescue Him for the Messiah delights in the Father!
And is this not what comes to pass.
Recall Peter’s words in Acts 2:23-24
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Crucified? Yes.
Killed? Yes.
RAISED? YES!
This is captures what Zechariah is really saying.
Jesus is the object of God’s rescue.
The Messiah-King is the object of God’s deliverance.
And now that He is delivered and victorious—resurrected and reigning—He is able to deliver His people unto victory.
He is able to raise His people to life.
He is able to make them co-heirs who will reign with Him forever.
When Jesus walked out of the rich man’s tomb in Jerusalem, it proved so much.
It proved He is the Son of God.
It proved that the Father had accepted His sacrifice.
It proved that He is the victor over death.
But in saying those things, what we are truly saying is what the prophet is saying in Zechariah 9:9—salvation is His.
Jesus’ resurrection proves that He possesses the salvation we need to be rescued from the very sin that makes us enemies of God.
And His salvation transfers us from enemies to friends.
It gives us citizenship in the Kingdom of the Messiah-King.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
How?
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
THE HUMBLE KING (v. 9-10)
THE HUMBLE KING (v. 9-10)
And now, understanding that the Messiah is a righteous and saving King, we turn our attention to the Palm Sunday picture you might be fairly familiar with—Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Zechariah says— “Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
3. The Messiah is a humble King (v. 9-10).
3. The Messiah is a humble King (v. 9-10).
Most of the time, people think that the prophecy regarding humility is connected to the animal of the donkey.
We look at a donkey as being kind of a ugly horse, don’t we?
A minor league animal that is just good for labor.
But in the ancient world, a donkey was quite a royal animal.
If you read through the book of Judges, the song of Deborah and Barak speaks of rulers on white donkeys.
Jair the Gileadite was a judge for 32 years and he has thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys.
Another judge, Abdon, had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on 70 donkeys.
In 2nd Samuel 16, Ziba brings saddled donkeys for David’s household to ride on.
But there is no more appropriate example than what we see in 1 Kings 1, in the effort of Adonijah to short-circuit his way to his father’s throne.
David is old and near death.
Recognizing this, Adonijah decides that he is going to be the king. Joab and Abiathar help him with his plan.
He decides that he is going to have a ceremony where he sacrifices oxen and cattle and sheep in abundance and have a big feast and announce himself as king.
Bathsheba and Nathan go to David and they tell him about it.
And they told the king, “Here is Nathan the prophet.” And when he came in before the king, he bowed before the king, with his face to the ground. And Nathan said, “My lord the king, have you said, ‘Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne’? For he has gone down this day and has sacrificed oxen, fattened cattle, and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king’s sons, the commanders of the army, and Abiathar the priest. And behold, they are eating and drinking before him, and saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’
David will not have it. Solomon is to take the throne. The Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7 is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, but it is partially fulfilled in Solomon. He is the one who will succeed his father’s rule and build the Lord a temple.
So David tells Nathan and Zadok the Priest and Benaiah to put Solomon on David’s donkey and bring him into Gihon, right next to Jerusalem, and ride him around and anoint him as king.
And they do just that:
So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule and brought him to Gihon. There Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” And all the people went up after him, playing on pipes, and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise.
So you can see—the donkey was actually the sign of royalty—not humility.
The donkey was the sign of anointing and annunciation.
The donkey was a sign that the rightful king had come.
It doesn’t take a seminary degree to make the connection with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
It is clearly a massively important moment in redemption history.
It is one of the only events included in all four of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Each of the Gospel writers recognized the significance of the day—Here is the greater Son of David, riding His donkey of coronation into Zion.
Here is the rightful King to Israel’s throne, coming to win His Kingdom.
Here is the Messiah, mounted on the royal mule, announcing that the Usurpers of Satan and sin and death, would reign no more over His people.
And just as the people cried out “Love live King Solomon,” as Jesus rode into Zion, the people cried out Hosanna.
So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
HUMBLE MEANS AFFLICTED
HUMBLE MEANS AFFLICTED
So if the Messiah being humble isn’t abut the donkey, what is it about?
Well, the answer is more about what He is about to do in Jerusalem and less about his means of travel to get there.
The donkey says He’s king.
But the humility speaks to the suffering that stands in between Him and victory for His Kingdom.
See, when you look at verse 10, you see that the Lord promises to cut off the ancient weapons of war—the chariots and the horses and the battle bow.
This is like Him saying He would cut off the tank and the fighter jet and the rifle.
He will speak peace to the nations and His rule will cover the earth—sea to sea. From the Euphrates to the ends of the earth.
For the Jewish people coming out of Exile, this gave them hope that the divided and shattered nation of God’s people would be unified once more.
In fact, this expectation persisted into the time of Christ.
You still see the disciples asking a question with this expectation in mind after the resurrection.
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
But Zechariah 9:14 tells us when this peace and restoration for the people of God will come in totality.
It is when the trumpet sounds:
Then the Lord will appear over them,
and his arrow will go forth like lightning;
the Lord God will sound the trumpet
and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south.
The day of the Lord—the day of our resurrection—the day when death and every other enemy of God meet their final end will come at the sound of the final trumpet.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
Then the Kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of Jesus.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
In His first advent, the Kingdom came to earth.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
In His second advent, the Kingdom will be consummated.
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
But in between the coming and the consummation, there was the conflict.
Peace was won through the humiliation of the Anointed One.
The Messiah was massacred.
The Christ was crucified.
The righteous, saving King was humbly obedient to the point of death—even death on a Cross.
The house of David would look on the Son of David and see the One whom they had pierced.
And true Israel will have godly sorrow over what their sin has done.
Listen to what Zechariah prophesies just a few chapters later:
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
But the One they mourn is the One who cleanses them.
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
Matthew Henry commented on this by saying:
Behold a fountain opened for us to wash in, and streams flowing to us from that fountain. The blood of Christ, and God’s pardoning mercy in that blood, made known in the new covenant, are a fountain always flowing, that never can be emptied. It is opened for all believers, who as the spiritual seed of Christ, are of the house of David, and, as living members of the church, are inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Christ opened the veins of His body in order to open the vein of salvation.
He was pierced through with nails so that our darkness could be pierced through with light.
He who knew no sin was made to be sin so that in Him, we become the righteousness of God.
He came. He won the conflict. And now, when He consummates His Kingdom in His 2nd Coming, those who have repented of their sin and trusted in His humble work of salvation, will not be condemned as His enemies, but welcomed as His friends and as His Bride.
The righteous King saved His people through a humble death.
He is the Messiah. There is none other.
HOW WILL YOU BE CONQUERED?
HOW WILL YOU BE CONQUERED?
Understanding this reality, the question for each of us this morning is this:
How will you be conquered by the righteous, saving, humble King?
See—we will all be conquered. It’s going to happen.
The question is whether it will be by grace or by power.
Thomas Watson, speaking of the Day of the Lord, said:
The enemies of Christ shall be but as so many clusters of ripe grapes, to be cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God, and to be trodden by Christ till their blood come out.
Thomas Watson
That isn’t just the flowery language of a man. He is drawing on the biblical words of Revelation 19 that we read just a few moments ago.
It is not smart to stir up a lion. We all know this.
Well Christ is the Lion of Judah.
The scepter will not depart from Him.
His Father has given Him the authority to judge every soul.
For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Just as the salvation of God comes through the Son, so does the judgment of God.
To not honor the Son is to not honor the Father.
If we do not repent of our sin, we are declaring ourselves as opposition to the King to the very end.
And we will never properly mourn the One we pierced.
Instead, we will only mourn that He has pierced us, and we will grind with an insatiable rage against Him for all of the days of eternity.
But it does not need to be so.
For this is a King who still has His doors open to you.
The invitation to His wedding supper is still there, waiting on your response.
Instead of bending your knee to His power in bitterness on the day of judgment, bend your knee willingly to His grace now and let this be the day of your salvation.
It is beyond the power of the greatest gifts to change the heart; a man may preach like an apostle, pray like an angel, and yet may have the heart of a devil. It is grace only that can change the heart. The greatest gifts cannot change it, but the least grace can. Gifts may make a man a scholar, but grace makes a man a believer.
Matthew Mead
Grace is the unmerited love of God.
You don’t deserve it.
It is not native to you. It must be donated by Him.
But when you receive that donation of His love, it will change your heart.
You will no longer be God’s enemy, but His friend.
And a thousand little things will change about you when it comes to your desires and your devotions, but there is one thing that is most important.
Your heart will love the King.
The righteous, saving, humble King.
Would you receive His love today?
Would you mourn for how you’ve pierced Him?
Would you turn away from your sin?
Would you receive Him in the city gates of your heart?
Would you cry Hosanna?