“These Stones Cry Out”
Luke 19:37-40
A sermon for 3/28/21 – Palm/Passion Sunday
Pastor John Bright
Luke 19 “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!”
39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
Back in the days when they let me do Children’s time in the front of the sanctuary, this was always a Sunday to talk to the kids about praising God. Maybe they had already processed around the room with palm branches waving above their cute, little heads. I liked to tell them that we carry around our own palm branches of praise all the time. Holding up my hand with fingers spread wide, I talk about how we don’t need to be at church or talk in fancy words. We can lift our hands, like the palm branches, and just say – “Praise the Lord!” Praising God is such a simple thing.
The scene that day was probably chaotic with folks going in all different directions. There was a large number of people that day headed for Jerusalem. You know how bad the traffic is when there is a NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway? Here is some info about Jerusalem in Jesus’ day – “According to the noted scholar Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem had a population of about 20,000 to 30,000 people. But at Passover, one of the three festivals that must be celebrated in Jerusalem mentioned in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, the Holy City’s population swelled by another 150,000. Imagine every room filled, with campsites popping up on every available hillside, inhabited by Jewish people who had traveled from throughout the world.” https://www.chosenpeople.com/site/passover-in-israel-past-and-present/
Jesus comes riding on a donkey with folks laying clothing and palm branches on the road. Some are waving palm branches. Then, as we read this morning, the disciples begin to speak – shouting – and they repeat Psalm 118:26 – “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” They add to it, referring to Jesus as the King which fits with the original psalm depicting a king, leading worshipers to the Temple. The whole Book of Psalms is a type of hymnal used by the Israelites. Psalm 118 was a song used during the Passover celebration.
Not everybody likes what is going on that day – just like last week – the religious leaders want Jesus to stop what is happening. Actually, Jesus couldn’t stop it even if He wanted to stop it. Why? This is fulfillment of a prophecy from 500 years before: Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” That’s why the stones would HAVE TO CRY OUT if folks did not. What’s happening that day was set in motion before the beginning of time and the ancient prophets were given the details hundreds of years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
The disciples did what they were supposed to do back then. What about us? What about today? Do we understand praise? Do we offer praise to our God as we should? Let’s talk about this as we enter into Holy Week.
We praise God because of WHO HE IS
Psalm 118 “1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
2 Let Israel now say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron now say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the Lord now say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
There are some ways Believers, through the centuries of the Church, have agreed we describe WHO GOD IS. We start at this point (always!) – God reveals Himself to us. The Creator shows the created all we need to know about the Creator. If we don’t start there, it always leads to trouble and that’s part of the problem in the Church today. Some folks today – not us right here – some folks think they done got to be smarter than God and they have figured out that God is not who He says He is. WOW!
Let’s start where we should start – how has God revealed Himself to us. We usually discuss four ways:
• The natural world God created – that’s general revelation – it’s a category
• Humanity, which God created – also in the general revelation category
• The Bible, which God authored – now we move to a new category – personal or special
• And finally, through the person of Jesus Christ – the second person of the Trinity – He is the fullest revelation of the Father in Heaven – and this is also in the category of personal revelation
Let’s look briefly at each of these. In the natural world we see with our eyes a night sky full of stars and the astronomers estimate all the stars visible in all directions around Earth, to be about 10,000 visible stars. https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-many-stars-could-you-see-on-a-clear-moonless-night
When we look in telescopes beyond our sky – NASA estimates there are 200 billion stars in just our galaxy and there could be 200 billion galaxies in the universe. It would take a powerful God to make all that – an All-Powerful God (Omnipotent).
God created humans (just a little smaller than a galaxy) with a conscience – the ability to know right from wrong. God is Righteous and Just. His Righteousness and Justice is perfect. How can God be Merciful and Just? Actually – those are two sides of the same coin. If you were charged with a serious crime and put on trial, when the verdict is “not guilty”, will you throw yourself on the mercy of the court? NO! Only if you are found guilty. There has to be the threat of punishment for there to be mercy. We know the ultimate punishment for us, for our sin, is an eternity in Hell.
God provided a form of temporary atonement for sin in the Old Testament – because He is a Merciful God and then, in the New Testament, we have the once-and-for-all sacrifice of the Spotless Lamb on Good Friday – because God is Merciful.
Jesus’ life paints a portrait of God’s Mercy – He ate with sinners, He chose the working men to be disciples, and He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey – where the greatest act of mercy ever in all of human history will take place. Can you praise God for who He is?
We praise God because of WHAT HE DOES
Psalm 118 “19 Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I will go through them,
And I will praise the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord,
Through which the righteous shall enter.
21 I will praise You,
For You have answered me,
And have become my salvation.”
God does what He does because of who He is – not the other way around. It’s the same for us – we are not sinners because we commit sin. Rather, we are sinners, it is the nature of humanity, so we commit sin. In these verses of Psalm 118 praise is offered to God for what He has done – opened the gates, gave them answers and offered salvation. If you go reading through the Book of Psalms, God is praised for hearing the cries of pain, for delivering from danger, for protection, for providing what is needed- the list goes on and on.
What we have seen God do in the past is a powerful insight for our Christian Walk today. Last week I held a funeral and talked about the person as one who loved to give to others. I talked about that being a picture of God’s love that we see proclaimed in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God so loved – He gave. Is that what we see on the Cross of Calvary? We should – God’s Love given to you and me and whosoever.
We can also see what God is doing in our lives and in the lives of those around us – like right here in our church. We have seen miracles and we have seen prayers answered. Let me ask you a question – if you kept a list of answered prayers from all your years of praying, how many pages would it fill up? One? Two? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? God is answering prayers and there are miracles happening all around the world every day – just like in the Bible! Can we praise God for what He does?
We praise God because of HOW HE MADE US
Psalm 100 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
3 Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
5 For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.
This is a well-known Psalm. Look at verse 3 again – “It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” God made each and everyone of us. He knit us together in our momma’s womb (Ps. 139:13) – each a unique creature, made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). How unique are you? Look at your fingers – nobody has your fingerprint pattern and no person has ever had the same fingerprint pattern on multiple fingers. You have ten different fingerprints. We are each unique and we are also the same – His people, His sheep.
In the wilderness, God had His people come together to worship and praise around the tabernacle. In Jerusalem, God gave them the hymnbook of the Psalms so His people could join their voices in praise and worship of Him. This has been the pattern of the Church through the centuries even as it is in Heaven. In the Book of Revelation, we read multiple descriptions of worship and praise around the throne of God. When we get to chapter 7 it’s a huge crowd – “9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom,
Thanksgiving and honor and power and might,
Be to our God forever and ever.
Amen.”
These around the throne wave palm branches – sound familiar? We have those right here – raise your hands! Go ahead! Praise the Lord – just say it! I praise you Lord because of who you are – merciful and mighty! I praise you Lord because of what you have done – you gave your Son for me to be saved and you have answered my prayers! I praise you Lord because you made me to praise you – so I will praise you here on earth and praise you when I stand before your throne in heaven. Praise the Lord! Amen.
