Whether or not you realize it, there has been a monumental shift within the modern church in the last century or so. Particularly in the last half of the last century, events and attitudes that perhaps seemed almost imperceptible at first have quickly gained a momentum and coalesced into a movement that has brought about sweeping changes throughout the church.

I would like to say that all these changes have been good. After all, there were some movements in the past such as the Reformation that swept through Europe and into America that changed the church for the better. But I’m afraid that is not the case with this movement. It’s difficult to put a name on it that encompasses everything that is going on. Some people have suggested that the movement should be called the New Emergent Church. But I don’t know if that is too limiting and in definitive .

Whatever it is that you want to call it, it is the most dangerous movement that Christianity has encountered since the Dark Ages.   It literally threatens to destroy not only the church as we know it, but it is also demonically designed to ultimately destroy souls by deluding them as to the true nature of the church, and specifically the true nature of the gospel.

Regardless of what you call this movement, regardless of the great diversity of denominations that are being sucked into it, it’s got one characteristic which is common to all. This great demonic delusion is focused on undermining the supreme authority of God’s word.   There really is no other greater purpose of the church other than to protect, to preserve, to proclaim and publish the word of God that men might be saved.   And yet today the word of God is almost nonexistent in many main line churches. And even when it is found, it’s importance, it’s prominence is diminished and relegated to an ancillary component of what is called worship. The scripture, which is the very essence of Christ, the Word of God, the voice of God, is subjugated to the whims of fashion, trends, technology, translations that emasculate the Word, teachers that downplay the authority of the Word, and so called spiritual experiences which trump the Word.

The incredible thing is that the greatest adversary of the church is not the atheists, nor the Islamists or any of the world’s agents in the media or government. But the greatest danger to the church is coming from within the church itself. The authority and supremacy of the Word of God is being attacked on so many different levels within the church in a varieties of ways and yet the average person is completely unaware of it. One of the primary ways this is happening has been through a shift in emphasis from the preaching of the Word of God with authority to an emphasis on what is called worship, or praise and worship.

Worship leaders today are often given a form of leadership found in the church that circumvents being vetted by the credentials for pastors or deacons found in 1 and 2 Timothy and yet they have more influence in the church many times than the pastor himself. People decide church associations today not based on what kind of preacher the pastor is, or even if he is preaching the word accurately, but they pick churches based on musical styles and often the worship leader’s talent.

Worship is often presented as a time of spiritual awareness, evoking an emotional response, a euphoric feeling that comes through music, sometimes an ecstatic outburst of emotion that is attributed to the Spirit. Worship has become a catch all for a multimedia presentation that encompasses, music, lights, images and sounds that coalesce in an experience that is loosely based on an even looser theology. The problem is that very often that theology,   if it’s not in outright error, is so lopsided in it’s perspective that it rarely presents the full gospel. It’s very often a partial gospel, encompassing a lopsided view of God as a one dimensional being who is limited in scope to only an emotional quotient called love, and which consequently sacrifices all the weightier issues of salvation such as sanctification and holiness as being archaic and out of touch or even legalistic.

Now as I alluded to earlier, there is nothing new under the sun. Technology may be newer, musical styles may have changed, but false theology has been around forever. The devil just keeps repackaging it, reformatting it for the next generation. Even in Jesus day, even with Jesus present, there are elements of false worship and errant theology that He has to deal with. So in this passage we are looking at today, in addition to looking at the historical account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we will see a contrast of true worship and errant worship.

First of all though, let’s consider the context of this passage. It is obviously divinely connected to the passage preceding it. In that parable, Jesus told a story about a king who came to receive his kingdom in a far away country. And he put his servants in charge of the kingdom until he returned. But there were people in that country, his citizens, that said “we will not let this man reign over us.” Jesus says in the story that when the king returns, he first addresses those faithful slaves who were good stewards of what he entrusted to them. He rewards the faithful. But those that were unfaithful with their stewardship he takes away even what they have and gives it to the faithful. And those that rebelled against his kingship, he says he will slay in his presence.

Now that is the immediate context of this passage we are looking at today. Jesus is the King who is coming to receive His kingdom. He came preaching “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” He was the King come to receive a far away kingdom. And while He was on earth, He entrusts His servants with a stewardship. They are given the responsibility of managing the kingdom and utilizing it’s resources in a way that will benefit the kingdom.

And that is exactly what Jesus had been doing. He had called 12 disciples to follow Him, to learn from Him. They had been entrusted with His Word. They sat under His teaching. One day, they will transcribe those words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and compile the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God. So in the time of His incarnation, Jesus delivers the Word of God, the gospel, to the disciples, not only the 12, but all those that truly leave all to follow Him and accept Him as Lord and King.

Now on this day, Jesus begins the final part of His journey to Jerusalem. He leaves Jericho, and approaches two small villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem and sends two of His disciples ahead into the village. He tells them that they will find there a donkey and her colt tied up there. And He tells the disciples that they are to bring Him the colt and if anyone asks what they are doing, they are to say that the Lord has need of it. So they go on ahead and they find everything exactly as He said.

So they bring back the colt to Jesus and put their robes on it for a saddle and then put Jesus on it. Now this is the first part of their worship. Notice first of all that worship involves obedience. These disciples are given a set of instructions that probably seemed kind of ridiculous to them at first. Go into the next village and you will find a colt tied there. Untie it and bring it here. And if someone asks you what you’re doing, then say the Lord has need of it. They probably were saying, “Right?!” This is a good way to get arrested. It didn’t make sense. Jesus hadn’t yet been to that village, so how could He know there was a colt tied there? And yet they unquestionably obeyed His world. They didn’t argue. They didn’t question. They did what He said, and the results were exactly like Jesus said they would be.

You know, the greatest detriment to true worship of God is our own intellect sometimes. We think we know better than God how to design a church, or how to relate to people. We think we know better than God how to attract a crowd, how to keep people’s interest. So we circumvent the preaching of the word and engineer some type of human program that we think will accomplish the end result that we want. But then at some point in the future, we discover that it didn’t really accomplish what we thought it would. 1Cor. 1:21 says that “since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.”

What those disciples didn’t realize, is that by being obedient to the word, they were also fulfilling Biblical prophecy. In Zechariah 9:9, written 500 years earlier, it was written, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And that is another key to true worship. True worship in accordance with the word of God accomplishes the will of God. See, even though they did not initially understand what they were doing, or why they were doing it in this way, the word of God explained it. The disciples were more than willing to celebrate Jesus as the coming Messiah, as the conquering King who would deliver their nation from the iron fist of Rome. But if they had studied the scriptures, they would have discovered that Zechariah says that yes, He was coming as a King, but that His purpose was salvation, not to conquer Rome. Zechariah says, “He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey.” A donkey was not a war horse, but a beast of burden. Jesus came to bear our burdens, to bear the burden of sin to the cross and be offered there as a sacrifice for our sins so that we might have salvation. And salvation is the only way to enter His kingdom.

Jesus’ purpose in entering Jerusalem was completely contrary to the disciples expectations. Christ entered Jerusalem not to conquer Israel’s political enemies, but to conquer sin. To defeat sin, by dying on the cross, being buried in the grave, descending into hell, and then raised by the power of God after three days. He defeated sin by robbing sin of it’s penalty; spiritual death. That is another element of worship that is missing in so many modern churches today. There is no preaching about sin, no emphasis on the need for confession and repentance from sin. Listen, there is no salvation without repentance from sin. Salvation by it’s definition is deliverance from the penalty of sin which is death. But there is hardly any mention of sin in modern worship today. It’s all about relationship. It’s all about love. It’s all about grace. And yet the Bible is clear that there is no salvation without repentance of sin. Jesus said twice in Luke 13, that unless you repent you will perish.

I believe that repentance is pictured in the disciples laying down their garments in the road for Him to ride on. The robe was a man’s covering. It was his dignity, it signified his status. We have the same thing today. Our status is printed on our clothes. We put little horses and polo players on our clothes so that people will know our status. It tells people something about us. Clothes are our first line of defense. These disciples laid down their defenses. Jesus says in another place that a man’s robe was used to keep himself warm at night. And so I don’t want to belabor the illustration too much, but I believe that laying down your robe symbolized a laying down of your dignity, your status, it was humbling one’s self before God. It was acknowledging your submission to the Lordship of the King. It was recognizing that your covering was ineffective, and you needed to be clothed in the robe of righteousness that Jesus provided for us at the foot of the cross.

I find very often in modern worship, almost the exact opposite of humiliation. Instead of humbling oneself to worship, there is very often an exaltation of the musicians, an exaltation of the entertainers whereby they are receiving the adoration that belongs to God. That is a dangerous thing ladies and gentlemen. That’s why I said last week that natural talent is not synonymous with spiritual gifts. In fact, many times I think a natural talent can be a detriment to being used by God because it draws attention away from God to you. That’s why Paul said he was given a thorn in the flesh, to keep him from exalting himself. He was a brilliant man. That was well known even to the Governor Festus and King Agrippa which prompted Festus to say, “Your great learning is driving you mad.” So God gave Paul a thorn in his flesh to keep from exalting himself, so that the glory might be to God. God alone deserves our adoration.

Now look at vs. 37-38 “As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

So as the procession leaves Bethpage and ascends the Mount of Olives the disciples start to praise God with a loud voice for all the powerful works that they had seen. Now this sounds more like what we think of when we think of praise. But let’s look at the characteristics of their praise. First they recognized Him as King, and secondly they recognized him as Lord. So they acknowledge and praise Him as the rightful King of His creation, but they also submit to Him as Lord. You may remember last week I referenced that depending on the politics of the president, I may or may not care for the guy currently in office in the White House. But regardless, he is the president and I am a citizen of the United States. There are times when that is a grudging acceptance on my part. But my attitude is something else entirely when my guy gets in the White House. Then I proudly say that he is my President. Not just the president of the country that I happen to be living in, but my President. There is a difference, because I am in agreement with his politics, his platform.

That’s a poor illustration perhaps of what it means to acknowledge Jesus as King, and Jesus as Lord. Jesus as King is acknowledging His domain, His right to rule. Jesus as Lord is gladly submitting to His rule in my life. Listen, true worship is submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in my life. It’s not singing a couple of songs and continuing in my sin. It’s not clapping my hands on Sunday morning and sleeping with my boyfriend or girlfriend on Sunday night. That’s why I started off by saying that true worship is obedience and then repentance. You can’t worship God and continue in sin. Nor can you refuse to acknowledge your sin as sin. That is a big one today. In the new worship mentality they first undermine the authority of scripture so that they can no longer say with certainty what constitutes sin. Then they take away the onus of sin by an aberrant doctrine of grace, and then they eventually try to redefine sin as not sin after all. And once the devil gets you to the point where you no longer think your sin is sin then he has you in the place that he can destroy you. And that’s his goal all along.

Another important element of their praise was peace in heaven. They are not talking about peace on earth – the absence of war or strife which is the social gospel that a lot of churches are buying into. But the peace that heaven gives is peace with God. And peace with God only is possible when the justice of God and the wrath of God against sin is satisfied. Paul says in Romans that we were enemies of God and that through Jesus we have peace with God. Rom. 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And secondly, having made peace, we now glorify God in heaven. How do we do that? Do we do that by simply saying it, by praising God in song, by repeating “glory to God?” No, not just singing praise, but living lives that bring praise to God. We glorify God not just with our mouths, but by the testimony of a transformed life. We saw that in Zaccheus. His transformation brought glory to God. Bartimaeus, his transformation brought glory to God. You want to worship God? Then let your transformation bring glory to God. Jesus said in Matt. 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Your good works done as a result of your transformed heart will bring glory to God as people observe your behavior in your daily life.

Now when the Pharisees and the religious leaders heard the disciples praising Jesus as the Messiah King, these men revealed that they were in fact the very ones that said, “we will not have this man to rule over us.” And so they said to Jesus in vs. 39, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” Now this is an interesting thing for Jesus to say. It actually has a dual meaning. First and most obviously, Jesus is saying that God isn’t dependent upon our praise, but He can cause even inanimate objects to erupt in His praise if He so desires. There is a notion out there that God is this pitiful, narcissistic kind of God that sits in heaven almost in a fit of despondency, waiting and wishing that someone would call, someone would tell him how wonderful He is. That somehow God just needs people to tell Him how great He is in order for Him to be happy. And if you just do that on a regular basis, God will bless you in return.

I would just remind such people of what Paul said to the philosophers on Mars Hill, that “God is not served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” God’s happiness is not dependent upon our praise.

But this statement about the stones is also a reference to judgment. In Habakkuk 2:11-12 the prophet writes about the judgment of God upon the city and says “Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, And the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a town with violence!” What Jesus is referencing here is that these men who are the rulers of Jerusalem that said “we will not have this man rule over us,” in denying Jesus the praise and recognition that He deserves are actually bringing upon their city the judgment of God for their rejection of His Son. That is exactly what the parable indicated in the previous chapter. That God would bring destruction upon those men that reject His Christ. And that is exactly what would happen to Jerusalem. God would bring judgment upon it just 40 years later because it rejected the Savior, God’s only Son. So what Jesus in essence is saying, is that even if these people were to fall silent, the stones of your city will cry out as a testament to the foolishness and the consequences of your rebellion.

Now that explains Jesus reaction and statement in the next few verses. Vs. 41 “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Jesus wept over the city because He knew that their worship of Him was superficial. The crowds were following Him now, but they would be calling for His crucifixion in less than a week. They had a man centered theology rather than a God centered theology. In their version, God would bring the Messiah to deliver them from their enemies, to bring prosperity to their nation, to bring peace from their oppressors. It was a social kingdom, a political kingdom, that was solely for their benefit. And so Jesus is weeping over the city because He knows that in the plan of God there must be suffering before exaltation. He must first be their sacrifice in order to be their Savior, and only then can He be their King and they His citizens.

But the crowds aren’t interested in sacrifice. They don’t want to hear about suffering. They want a solution to their immediate problems. There are a lot of people today that are drawn to God, are drawn to a superficial kind of worship that is man-centric, that appeals to their emotions, appeals to their particular crisis. And the new worship template promises them an easy solution to their problem. God is love, and He just loves to love you, and because He loves you He will give you everything you want if you just believe that He loves you. What they fail to teach you though is the full counsel of God’s Word that requires that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your might. And that if you truly love God like that, then God’s will must be paramount, it must take precedence over everything and every one. That means you cannot love God and the world, you cannot love God and money. You cannot love your family member or your girlfriend or your boyfriend more that God. God must have preeminence. There is a cost to loving God, and the cost is the love of the world.

Well, Jerusalem would within the week reject Jesus Christ as their Savior, as their Sacrifice. They would call for His crucifixion. And just 40 years later the historian Josephus would record that Titus would encircle Jerusalem, he would erect a wall, he would bring a siege upon the city, and then after 6 months in 70 AD he would break through the walls of Jerusalem and massacre every man, woman and child. Some would estimate that over 200,000 Jews would be killed inside the city. And then Titus set fire to the city. They believed that the walls of the Temple had gold in them and to get at the gold they burned the city and then tore apart the walls to get at the gold.  Today there is only one fragment of the city of Jerusalem still standing, the Wailing Wall. It’s where the Jews go to pray for the Messiah to come. They still refuse to recognize that He already came and they did not recognize the time of His visitation. Some of you here today, I wonder if you recognize that today is the day of Christ’s visitation? Today salvation has been presented to you. The question is whether or not you will accept Jesus as Lord and follow Him or reject Him.

Immediately after entering the city, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those that were selling. In vs. 46 Jesus says to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” What an indictment against their house of worship! They had prostituted the temple of God. They had prostituted the sacrificial service. They had set up money changers and animal brokers and so forth within the temple walls to supposedly accommodate those that were coming to worship God. But instead they had corrupted the system to the point that instead of helping people worship God they were robbing people.

Ladies and gentlemen I am afraid that many churches today are prostituting the gospel of God. The house of God has been turned into a carnival. The church has bookstores and coffee shops and bazaars and dinners and marathons and car shows and flea markets and every possible entertainment and event going on. Yet as Proverbs says the people perish for lack of vision. The church has lost it’s vision, lost it’s purpose. The church isn’t a community center. It’s not a social hall. It’s not a concert hall. The church is a place where God’s people come together to worship God in Spirit and in truth. It’s the place where the water of life is given freely and without charge. It’s the place where people’s souls are fed, hearts are encouraged, and sinners are convicted. It’s not a place where we try to make sinners feel good about themselves. But where sinners repent and are delivered and set free. But unfortunately many churches today are robbing people of the gospel of salvation.

In the earliest church in Jerusalem during the time of the apostles, they were feeding the widows and the apostles said let us set aside certain men for that task. But as for us, the apostles said, “we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4) That’s the priority of the church. And that’s the priority of worship as well.

So Jesus cleaned house. You know, I wish all these people that only believe that God is love could have been there that day when Jesus got a bull whip and overturned all the stalls and tables and drove out all the animals and vendors and money changers out of the temple. I don’t think most of those people would recognize Jesus nor would they worship Him. This was the second time by the way that Jesus cleaned out the temple. In John’s account it says the disciples remembered the proverb that said, “the zeal for your house has consumed me.”

Folks, we need some old fashioned zeal for the house of God. We need some zeal for the word of God and the preaching of the word of God. We need to put an end to the prostitution of Christianity, the business of the church and get back to being about the business of the kingdom of God.

That’s what we see Jesus bringing the people back to in vs. 47, 48. It says, after that “He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.” You see that? Jesus was teaching daily in the temple. He was preaching every day and the people were hanging on to His every word. That’s zeal for God. I long to see people with a zeal for the word of God, that don’t want to miss a service, don’t want to miss a message. That are willing to sacrifice the enticements of the world for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ and becoming conformed to His image.

Jesus said in John 6:63 “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Listen folks, Paul reminded Timothy to hold onto the scripture which he had learned from childhood “which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Let’s not lose sight of the priority and preeminence of the word of God in our worship. And then let us be obedient to the word of God. And if we are obedient to the word of God then we will have no problem submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And when the Lordship of Christ is evident in our lives then our lives will be a living testimony to the glory of God. People will see our transformation, our good works and glorify God.

I pray that starting today you will renounce superficial worship. But diligently commit to living out Romans 12:1,2. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”