What Can You Do With Talking Rocks?
Sermon for 1 April 2007
“Then, as He (Jesus) was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying:
’Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’
And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’ ” (Lk 19:37-39)
Lk 19:40 “But He answered and said to them, ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’ ”
No foolin! (April Fools Day) Jesus was not fooling on the day he answered negative criticism of Himself and His disciples as He entered Jerusalem.
But let’s begin where the passage for today starts.
Jesus had been teaching His disciples about the nature of God and how God is just and merciful.
Because of who God is there will be blessing for those who trust Him and punishment for those who hate Him. This is summed up in verse 26 of this chapter where Jesus says:
Lk 19:26 ’For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
Lk 19:28 “When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”
Today we celebrate the coming of Jesus into Jerusalem.
He asserts His position as the Messiah as Saviour of Israel and indeed of the world.
He comes into His proper calling as Messiah: the One we call the Christ. He is celebrated as Messiah by coming into the city as prophesied a few centuries earlier by the prophet Zechariah (Zech 9:9).
It is a mark of a good leader that they know where they are going.
Fanatics know where they want to get to also.
What separates the two is that the good leader uses just, moral ways to get there, but the fanatics use any means available to them regardless of how immoral or harmful it is. You only have to compare Jesus with Joseph Stalin.
So we are alerted to think about Jesus going up to Jerusalem.
A long time before this great day, Luke tells us:
Lk 9:51 “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face…”
Although a bit of a mystery to His disciples at the time, we know that it was for a good purpose that Jesus had to go to Jerusalem.
You can almost see the determination on Jesus’ face! Can’t you?
Verse 28 tells us Jesus went on ahead of His disciples.
Why? I believe it was His time to think, to pray, eager to get to His destiny.
Illustration
Jesus reminds me here of the long distance runner. Think of the Marathon runner. There has to be a settled determination in your heart if you are going to win a Marathon.
You train for the distance, for the conditions, your diet and liquid intake has to be measured and controlled; the opposition could be a factor; your health also needs to be good. But you have to plan, you have to train, you have to be well prepared just to complete the 26.2miles which is just over 42 kms.
That’s a very long way.
(http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm) (26.2 mile = 42.164kms)
Make no mistake, Jesus was prepared in just such a way. It was all part of the cost of obeying His Father’s calling on His life as our Saviour.
Lk 19:29 “And it came to pass, when He came near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples…”
Jesus loved Bethany because it was his second home…so He was aware it would be the last time He would see these lovely surroundings reminding Him of some of His happiest days on earth.
This was after all, the place where his lovely friends Lazarus and the two sisters Mary and Martha lived. It was here that these friends accommodated and entertained Him so often.
But it was on with the business, no time to lose.
“He sent two of His disciples saying, ‘Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, “Why are you loosing it?” thus you shall say to him, “Because the Lord has need of it.”’ (Lk 19:29-31)
The disciples are interesting.
They obeyed this command without question.
Maybe that day of all days, there was a steely look in the eyes of Jesus? Whatever the circumstances, He had obviously taught them to obey His instructions. They had been trained by the discipline of an Expert with men! That is probably the main reason they obeyed without question. Not only had Jesus been teaching them consistently and with grace, but He had also given them clear instructions which did not need to be explained any further.
Obedience pays great rewards.
Imagine how these men felt after they brought the animals to Jesus and how they felt at His approval.
Imagine how proud they were to see Him mount the donkey and move off toward Jerusalem, and imagine how they felt to see Jesus praised by the crowds as He entered into His last acts on our behalf.
Lk 19:32 “So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them.
19:33 But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, ‘Why are you loosing the colt?’
19:34 And they said, ‘The Lord has need of him.’
19:35 Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him.”
For the disciples, there was the beginning of their reward.
It was lovely for them to see this new brand of Saviour, new to the disciples anyway.
The disciples like everyone else, had until now, expected a military type of Messiah who would take Jerusalem by storm and call for His army to overthrow the Roman domination of His people and then lead them to victory on His white charger.
Instead, here we have the first vision of the true Messiah in action, coming as He did on the foal of a donkey to conquer by His submission to the Father. This new Messiah now being publicly praised for who He was, presenting Himself before His people.
“And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road. (37) Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works 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!’” (Lk 19:36-38)
The Response
So that was the response of the common people.
Now we are to see what the religious authorities thought of this.
19:39 “And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’
19:40 “But He answered and said to them, ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’ ”
Albert Barnes says: “The expression (of Jesus) here seems to be ‘proverbial,’ and is not to be taken literally. Proverbs are designed to express the truth ‘strongly,’ but are not to be taken to signify as much as if they were to be interpreted literally. The sense is, that his coming was an event of so much importance that it ‘ought’ to be celebrated in some way, and ‘would’ be celebrated. It would be impossible to restrain the people, and improper to attempt it. The language here is strong proverbial language to denote that fact. We are not to suppose, therefore, that our Saviour meant to say that the stones were ‘conscious’ of his coming, or that God would ‘make’ them speak, but only that there was ‘great joy’ among the people; that it was ‘proper’ that they should express it in this manner, and that it was not fit that he should attempt to repress it.” (Albert Barnes’ Commentary, E-Sword, on Luke 19:40)
What Albert Barnes is appealing for is a proper interpretation and understanding of the Bible.
If you want to understand the Bible, you must learn to separate the words like those Jesus uses in His parables and life lessons from the ones that speak literally.
For example, Jesus’ parables in the Gospels and the book of Revelation use symbol, allegory, parable and stories all the way through in order to convey and to teach spiritual and moral truth. All the teachings of the Bible are literally and absolutely true, “all scripture is inspired by God” (II Tim3:16) but not all teachings are conveyed in words that are literal.
We are given the Holy Spirit so that we can interpret Scripture with Scripture.
All the Bible’s words are to be understood as absolutely true in their context and within their given purpose.
So Jesus uses a picture of speaking stones, talking rocks, to get His point across.
Let’s not lose His point.
His point is that since Jesus is declared by fulfilling prophecy (Zech 9:9) and riding into Jerusalem on a donkey as Messiah, as the Christ, He should be praised, honoured, and accepted by all who are in Jerusalem.
If His disciples did not praise Him then proverbially the stones at the side of the road would jump up and cry out praise to His great name!
’Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’
An Important Decision
So what can you do with talking rocks?
Your response is either to follow the religious authorities of Jesus’ day or to follow the crowd of those who praised Him as their Messiah.
What is it to be: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord?”
Or: “Crucify Him, Crucify Him?” (See Lk 23:21 But they shouted, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!")
And this is important since we know that the religious authorities remained implacably against our Lord and switched up the crowd to plead for Barabbas to be freed at the cost of our Saviour.
This crowd included some who praised Jesus on Palm Sunday, and on then when He was betrayed and condemned, the bulk of the crowd itself turned against Jesus and voted to crucify Him who loved us.
What a terrible thing!
It is important for you to choose now which you will follow, as is brought home in
An Illustration entitled: “Decision Without Procrastination"
"During the early days of the ministry of Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist launched a series of meetings in Chicago with promise of the largest crowds that he had ever addressed up to that time. He was speaking of the life of Christ, and on the first Sunday night, October 8, 1871, he took as his topic the trial before Pilate. As he came to the end of his message, he turned to Mat_27:22,
‘What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?’
He concluded, ‘I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the cross, and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.’
It may have been an artistic device. But speaking of it in later years, Moody called that conclusion to his morning’s address the greatest mistake of his life. Even while Mr. Sankey was singing the final hymn:
‘Today the Savior calls;
For refuge fly;
The storm of justice falls,
And death is nigh-’
the fire engines began to sound on the street on their way to their first contact with the great Chicago fire in which Moody’s hall was laid in ashes, and in which it is estimated that over a thousand persons lost their lives. Moody never saw that congregation again, and some of those to whom he spoke on that night doubtlessly died.”
(From 2000+ Bible Illustrations in e-Sword Bible. Go to: http://www.e-sword.net)
Do you recognize Jesus as the Christ?
Why did they worship Him back then?
Why do we need to worship Him now?
For the same reason they did: that He is declared to be our Saviour, Messiah and Lord.
Jesus Christ is the One who died on your behalf and took the penalty of all your sins and mine…
Alleuia, what a Saviour! Amen.
