Luke 19:28-40
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Triumphal Entry
28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage andBethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”Accompanying John MacArthur sermon: Jesus' Humble Coronation Part 1
Accompanying Mark Driscoll sermon: Jesus Christ is Lord, King, and Savior
Accompanying Matt Chandler sermon: Good Servants, Wicked Servants, and the Enemies of God
One thing I've always loved about this passage is how Jesus totally predicts the future, and it unfolds exactly as He said it would. Humanly impossible. Yet one more proof of His divinity - omniscience.
The other is how this fulfills prophesy.
The timing of this is utter perfection. Passover is coming up, and Jesus enters Jerusalem on Lamb Selection Day - the day the people had to choose the lamb that they would sacrifice on Passover, the upcoming Friday. Jesus was presented as the lamb, and the people chose Him.
This is also the first time Jesus allows a crowd to get this riled up and to proclaim Him Messiah. Previously, He would not allow it, because He knew full well that it would push the Pharisees into arranging for His execution - and it was not yet God's time. But now, it is. And Jesus knows it.
MacArthur:
And it pressed all the buttons necessary to activate His enemies to get it done fast. And what they did out of hatred was what God determined what would be done out of love. And Jerusalem had to be the place because Jerusalem was where all sacrifices were made. That's where the altar was, that's where the temple was, that was God's city. That was the holy city, the temple city, the place where God met His people, the place where God was worshiped and the only place where sacrifices were made. He had to be there in God's city where God met His people and where sacrifice was offered. So Jerusalem is the place and the time is now, and it has to be this Passover in the year A.D. 30. Why? Because this is exactly 483 years after Daniel's prophecy. Back in Daniel chapter 9, the prophecy of Daniel coming from God was that in 69 times 7 weeks, seven weeks of years, 69 times 7 weeks the Messiah would be cut off, He would be killed, 483 years from the decree of Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes made his decree in 444 B.C. The decree is made, 483 years later the prophet says the Messiah will be cut off, it is this year, A.D. 30. The Messiah comes, it must happen in this city, in this year, it must happen on the Friday when Passover lambs are executed.
And so, Jesus knows exactly what He's doing. He knows what time it is on God's calendar and God's clock.
Riding on a colt was somewhat of a Davidic tradition - King Solomon rode a mule for his coronation (1 Kings 1:32-40), and David, on occasion, rode a mule. But this wasn't just about Davidic tradition, this was also about fulfilling prophecy. Zechariah 9:9 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout in triumph, O daughters..a daughter of Jerusalem, behold your king is coming to you. He is righteous and endowed with salvation. He's coming as a Savior, humble, mounted on a donkey, not just a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
Some more interesting facts from Ray Vanderlaan.....
The people were shouting "Hosannah" (seen in other gospels) which means "save us", or "deliver me", or "give me my freedom". The people were clearly expecting a conquering Messiah, not a suffering one.
And the palm branches...
The palm branches were the symbol of the Maccabees. They were nationalistic symbols, claiming the independence they’d enjoyed before the Roman conquest.
When Jesus says "the very stones would cry out", He was quoting scripture, but He was also teaching in the form of a remez - which means the scripture that was actually even more important were the verses immediately before or after.
Psalms 96, 98, and 148, and Isaiah 55:12 all refer to creation praising the Lord, some with specific Messianic emphasis. And consider Habakkuk 2:9-11 and imagine what the Pharisees thought (who were very familiar with both the OT, and the remez method of teaching)
"Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.
MacArthur speaks to this as well.....
If these become silent, and they will....when these become silent...since these will become silent, the stones will cry out. It needs to be noted that the silence of Israel has not yet been broken. The Tuesday of that week when the crowd fell silent, launched millennia of a refusal on the part of Israel to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. How fickle they were. A few days later they’re saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him. Give us a criminal. Give us a murderer. We don’t want Jesus.” They’re still saying it these two thousand years later. When that crowd fell silent, that nation fell silent...and they’re still silent.
The opposition to Jesus was so strong that even after the resurrection from the dead, the praise of Jesus was never raised in the city of Jerusalem, or in the land of Israel, except among the few thousand who were saved. When Jerusalem grew silent, Jesus said, “The stones will cry out.” Cry out, krazo, scream..future tense...when in the future these people become silent, in the future the stones will scream. Screaming stones? What is that? What is that? It’s more than just the expression of praise from some inanimate object, as if God is to be praised by His creation...far more than that. In fact, in the little prophecy of Habakkuk, chapter 2, we have a very good parallel. In the prophecy of Habakkuk we have a statement of judgment on the Chaldeans...the Chaldeans, the wicked, pagan Chaldeans. And the Chaldeans had basically prospered as a society, but they had prospered at the expense of other nations, they had prospered by extortion, they had prospered by usury, charging exorbitant interest rate, they had prospered by murder and bloodshed. They had literally built their towns and cities by the sacrifice and the slaughter and the abuse of other people. So Habakkuk, the prophet, is given a message from God of judgment against them. I just want to pick out one verse, that is in verse 11. “Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework.” Then verse 12, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence.” The stones in the houses and the buildings that they built were symbols of their wickedness. The walls of their houses and the timbers of their roofs plundered from others gained by bloodshed and usury, scream of their wickedness, scream of their guilt. And Jesus is saying the same thing here.
The opposition to Jesus was so strong that even after the resurrection from the dead, the praise of Jesus was never raised in the city of Jerusalem, or in the land of Israel, except among the few thousand who were saved. When Jerusalem grew silent, Jesus said, “The stones will cry out.” Cry out, krazo, scream..future tense...when in the future these people become silent, in the future the stones will scream. Screaming stones? What is that? What is that? It’s more than just the expression of praise from some inanimate object, as if God is to be praised by His creation...far more than that. In fact, in the little prophecy of Habakkuk, chapter 2, we have a very good parallel. In the prophecy of Habakkuk we have a statement of judgment on the Chaldeans...the Chaldeans, the wicked, pagan Chaldeans. And the Chaldeans had basically prospered as a society, but they had prospered at the expense of other nations, they had prospered by extortion, they had prospered by usury, charging exorbitant interest rate, they had prospered by murder and bloodshed. They had literally built their towns and cities by the sacrifice and the slaughter and the abuse of other people. So Habakkuk, the prophet, is given a message from God of judgment against them. I just want to pick out one verse, that is in verse 11. “Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework.” Then verse 12, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence.” The stones in the houses and the buildings that they built were symbols of their wickedness. The walls of their houses and the timbers of their roofs plundered from others gained by bloodshed and usury, scream of their wickedness, scream of their guilt. And Jesus is saying the same thing here.
There are going to be some stones who will cry out against you as the stones in the past cried out of the guilt of the Chaldeans. All you had to do was look at their houses and when you saw them, all their prosperity, all their edifices were testimonies to their corruption and bloodshed. The stones cried out of their guilt and the judgment of God upon them, and some stones are going to do the same in your case.
Amazing how much is packed into these verses!
Monday's scripture focus: Luke 19:41-44
Sunday's passage: Hebrews 12; Song of Solomon 2; Daniel 1-2
Monday's passage: Hebrews 13; Song of Solomon 3; Daniel 3-4
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