I would like to read several scriptures this morning. Some in the Old Testament and some in the New Testament. First of all, Psalm one hundred and eighteen. Psalm one hundred and eighteen. And we'll read a few verses. Verse nineteen. Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord. This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter, I will praise thee, for thou hast hurt me, and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders refused has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We've already read that twice this time. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. God is the Lord which has showed us light. Vind a sacrifice with cords, even under the horns of the altar. Thou art my God, I will praise thee. Thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto the Lord for his good, for his mercy endures. forever. Zechariah, the last book but one in the Old Testament. Zechariah, chapter nine and verse nine. Greatly rejoice, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an hour and upon a coat the full of an hour. Now let's turn to Matthew twenty-one. I think the Lord is overruling today because I had intended to read about the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but I had intended to read from Matthew twenty-one. And it's in John twelve. It's in Mark eleven, isn't it? And it's in Luke nineteen. And Mr. Woodhouse has already read Luke nine, the one in Mark and the one in Luke, but I had in mind to read the one in Matthew. So we're getting a full story this morning. of the, what we call the Pound Sundays. Matthew twenty-one. And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Beth's stage, unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying, Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ark tied and a coat with her. Loose them and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, he shall say, The Lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, say, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, that's what I read, in Zechariah nine, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a coat the full of an hour. And the disciples went and did, as Jesus commanded them, and brought the out, and the coat, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way. Others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitude that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Ozana to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosana in the highest. And when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. May God bless to us the reading of his own precious word. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee now to thank thee for this wonderful story which we've already read three times this morning. Three different viewpoints of the way thy beloved Son entered his own city. He who was the King of Jerusalem came riding in lowly, sitting upon an ark, in absolute humility. and crowd bowed before him and said, Hosanna, save now. But they did not know what he will. They did not know that within a week they will nail him upon a cross and crucify him. And we thank thee that once more thou hast brought us round in this season of the year to the time when all the Western world will be thinking about Easter and the Easter week, the Passion Week as men call it. And we ask thee, Lord, that here in our meetings this week the thing concerning the sufferings of thy Son might be brought before our vision. We cast this upon thee, and we ask, Lord, that in the meeting this morning thou wouldst speak to some heart, O we do not know one another. man looketh upon the countenance God looketh upon the heart and we pray that the Holy Spirit of God might take the word of God and apply it to the heart of everyone here this morning for thy glory we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen now it's not a very easy task to bring a conference like this to an end we have had A tremendous conference here this year, I think the best ever. The ministry has been superb. I think I have attended, well, I can't say all the meetings, but I was in Chicago during three of the meetings, but, and I had to go to Tampa on two occasions, but I suppose I missed five meetings from the whole period. And we have had a wonderful, wonderful time. And God has fitted the ministry together. And I would like, if possible, in this final week to kind of pull it, kind of pull it all together if we can, and get some lessons out of the wonderful ministry we've heard this week. What could be more fitting? I've been thinking this over now for weeks. What could be more fitting this week? than to think of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. The cross of Christ, we sometimes think of the cross of Christ and talk about it as the center of two eternities, which look with... With rapt adoring eyes backward and on to thee. And surely the cross of Christ is the center of all God's plans, all eternity looked on, and all eternity will look back. So this week we're thinking, The religious world called it Passion Week. Well, that's a good name, anyhow. The Lord Passion. When I lived in Greece, I lived there ten years. The evangelical churches there used to get together on this particular week of the year, and in one or other of the various churches, they had a service every week of this particular week. with a different speaker in each of the churches. And we used to go year after year, made a great impression upon me, and they took the incidents and the scenes leading up to the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. And this is what I have in my mind as a kind of concluding week for our conference. Do you remember when Brother Mortland was here? I think he was our third speaker. And unfortunately I had to miss three of his messages because I had to go to Chicago to the Stuart Foundation board meeting. But I'll read you what he read, and he read it every day. It came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by whirlwind that Elijah went with Elijah from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elijah, Tarry here I pray thee. for the Lord has sent me to Bethel. The Lord has sent me to Bethel, the house of God. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were there in Bethel came forth to Elisha and said unto him, Know it thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, Yeah, I know it. Hold your feet. And Elijah said unto him, Elisha tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord has sent thee to Jericho. He said, as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophet there were Jericho came to Elisha and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? He answered, yea, I know it. Hold your feet. And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee here for the Lord and said, Be to Jordan. He said, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on. Now you know the story, how they, Elisha took his mantle, wrapped it together and smote the waters of the river Jordan, and they divided. And it came to pass as they went on and taught that, Behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted and was thunder. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. Brother George Morton, he gave us a picture I must have never seen before. In all the years I've been reading the Scripture. And it was sixty-seven years ago last week the Lord saved me. And I've been reading the Bible since before that. But he gave us a picture here of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord says to his disciples, The Lord has sent me to Bethel for the house of God. And he told us how the Lord Jesus had a great desire to be in the house of God. Then he said, The Lord has sent me to Jericho. the city of a curse. And he told us how the Lord Jesus came into this cursed scene of sin and wickedness. And he said, the Lord sent me to Jordan, and Jordan means death. And he said to Elisha, now you stay here. Elisha said, oh no. If you go, I'm going. If you go to the house of God, I go with you. If you go to Jericho, I go with you. If you go to Jordan, I'm going with you. If you're going up to heaven, I can't go, but I'm going to watch you go up to heaven. That was a gist of his talk for a whole week. And he did my mind all through the common speaking. And I feel perhaps we could bind this all together and make it part of our thinking this week. The Lord has sent me to death as a city. And I've been thinking about Matthew's gospel. And I would like to call our talk this week. If you like, the road to the cross, via Dallarosa, if you like, the way of Solomon, or the way of Calvary, whichever you like to choose. How can I say the road to the cross? And let's try and spend a week, if we can, following in the footsteps of the Lord, good steps of the Lord, and I would like it to be from Matthew's Gospel, verse by verse, we'll go through, you cannot go verse by verse, from chapter twenty one right through to chapter twenty eight couldn't do it in the time what we pick up from verses as we go through and there's an awful lot of argument in john's gospel between the entry into jerusalem and the crucifixion there's an awful lot of arguing that mark has it also but john does john takes you up into the upper room and you hear the lord speaking to his disciples but in matthew All these Sadducees and Scribes and Pharisees are bringing arguments to the Lord. But we'll probably have to skip through some of that and go into the last night and visit Gethsemane, visit the upper room. And we'd have to stand in Pilate's Judgment Hall. And we'd have to go to the gravesite and see where they buried, the Father of the Lord Jesus. And I think in this way we might bring it to a fitting close, our wonderful, wonderful conference of nineteen seventy-nine, the lower tally for another week. I would like, as a title for today's talk, this title, which I took from Psalm one hundred and eighteen, psalm a hundred now you've never heard of this connection before i don't think i never have it was three o'clock this morning the lord i spent three hours tonight i spent from three to five this morning in the middle of the night reading this and it was about quarter three to three quarter past three this morning the lord gave me this as i've never seen it this is the day which the lord has made if you'll read persian you'll you'll say that's the sabbath day or he meant the Lord therefore, and we all say, this is the day when we get up in the morning, this is another day the Lord has made. But I would like to emphasize this. This is the day with the Lord. Look at Luke nine, G, I mean, which our brother read just now, Luke nine, G and verse... And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day, in the original the word thy is not there. If thou hadst known even thou at least this day, if thou hadst known this day the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thy name. This is the day which the Lord has made. And I would like this morning to take this particular day, the day when the Lord entered into Jerusalem and apply these verses to it. This is the day the Lord has made. If thou hadst known even this day, what day, a very important day in God's record. God has a program. God has a challenge. I've spent most of my life as a production engineer. And Mr. John C. funeral, bear me out in what I'm saying. When you are in a production world, you have to make a schedule. They have to make a plan. I like the way my late brother Tom used to put it. The three things he used to say are necessary in management. You've got to analyze, you've got to organize, and you've got to supervise. And by analyzing meant you had to break it all down, no matter whether you're going to build a anything, a small thing or a big thing, or an airplane or a missile or whatever it is, break it all down into all its components, analyze, find out what you've got to do. It's like Shafi Nishu said last week. He likes to get up the morning and write out a list of the things you've got to do and then stick to the program. Or as one of our speakers would say, he was here and he said, plan your work and work your plan. It's good. Plan your work and work you plan. And God had a plan and God had a schedule. I like the way it's put in Galatians four, verse four, when the fullness of the time was come. God set forth his plan. God planned back in eternal ages this wonderful scheme of redemption. And there was a moment, and yet you can't talk about moments in heaven because there's no time there. But for our sake, because we cannot understand the language of heaven yet, we will one day, we'll talk in earthly language. There came a moment in the history of heaven, when the Son of God said, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it's written of me, I delight to do thy will. And God said, He's come, Son, when the fullness of the time must come. On God's schedule the date came, and God's Son came into this world, born in Bethlehem, cradled in a manger. and the fullness of the time. In Romans five, it says this. That was his birth at Bethlehem. In Romans five, it says this. In verse eight, God commended, you know, a little out, verse six. For when we were yet without strength in Jude time, Christ died for the ungodly. When the fullness of the time was come on God's schedule, he checked it off. His son came into the world. But in due time, this is another spot in God's schedule. He checked it off. His son. He gave his son. He died for the ungodly. And if you go to Ephesians chapter one, verse ten, you'll see another point in God's wonderful plan in God's wonderful script. schedule Ephesians one in verse ten and it says that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather to one gather together in one all things in Christ which are in heaven and which are in earth God has a plan and he's already checked off some of the items on the plan and they're all finished the gathering together in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the gathering together of all one in Christ Jesus, that is future. And this Psalm, a hundred and eighteen, looks into the future, when the Lord Jesus will reign throughout the world, and in Jerusalem, and all the world will bow at his feet. I suppose when it speaks about the gate of Jerusalem, it's properly referring as it does in Psalm. twenty-four lift up your head though ye gates and be lifted up your everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in and that eastern gate our brother was talking about this morning which is still closed and will not be open to do the son of god comes back they tried to open it you know for kings who seem to say to walk to go in they were they're getting all ready he was going to march into the city of jerusalem and when it was all ready to go the six-day war came and he never marched him because god had said that gate is closed until the sun comes back. It'll open then, but not soon. And so it mentions a gate in Psalm, I'm saying, and the Lord entering into a gate, that's future. Although I take it, as our brother said this morning, there when he drove into Jerusalem, he entered into that eastern gate. I've been there. I've gone down the Mount of Olives, and I've traveled along that footpath that our brother was talking about this morning. And it's a wonderful thing to see the picture of the Lord Jesus lonely, sitting upon an hour, driving into his city. Matthew's gospel is the gospel of the king. There are four gospels. Three of them we call the synoptics. Optic obviously do with the eyes, isn't it? An optician is a man that drops your eyes. And the Greek word sin means together. So sinoptic means that these three look at it together from the same viewpoint. But they call John's gospel altoptic. And also in Greek means on your own. I remember one standing on a street corner in Athens when I was trying to learn a little bit about the Greek language and And a friend of mine, a car went by and he said, do you know what that's called? And I said, yes, astokinita. And I said, tell me what does it mean, astokinita. Well, he said, you know a little French, don't you? You know, you know what automobile means? You know, when I started to learn Greek, I found out little English, I knew, and our little French. Automobile, mobile is movement, and auto is all on your own. Astho, we don't say auto in modern Greek, we say astro. But he says by auto-kineto, the auto means on his own. And kinesis is the theory of movement. And astro-kineto is the thing that moves by, well, automobile. He goes on his own. He's mobile, but he does it himself. He says his power within himself. And the... Synoptic is looking together, but Autoptic is not looking alone. So John takes a unique view when he writes his gospel, and he writes about the Son of God, different to what the others do. John starts away in a fast eternity. In the beginning was the word. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they start in time. Matthew starts with his birth, and so does Luke. Mark, of course, doesn't say much about his birth, because in Mark he's a servant. He doesn't care much about a servant's birth. You have to get a good servant. And the words that signify Mark are the words immediately and straightway and force where the good servant does a job in a hurry quickly for his master. That signifies Mark. But he's all right about the Lord Jesus Christ. And I thought I would like to take Matthew, the story, the road to Calvary from Matthew's brother. In Matthew, the Lord Jesus Christ is the King. In Mark, he's the servant. In Luke, he's the man, perfect man. And in John, he's the Son of God. Here we have the King of Israel. He was born. And Matthew gives his ancestry, tracing him right back to David, the King of Israel. So there is no question whatever about the ancestry of the Lord Jesus. He was royal. He had royal blood. He came down through the royal blood of the Jewish reigns. Both Mughal and Joseph was only a father by name. But both of them came down, the two sides of the line from David, and they could trace their ancestry right back to David. So he was the official king. But the marvel is, their eyes were closed when they did not. And when the wise men came to Herod and said, who'd come to see, find the one that was born king of the Jews. That upset Herod very much because he was the set up king of the Jews of his day and he caused all the children of two years of age to be put to death in order to destroy this one that was born king of the Jews. But God overruled that. The fullness of the time had come and God had sent his king into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he went down into Egypt. His father had been down into Egypt. And when that Herod was dead, he came back again. And the Lord Jesus was there as king. You wouldn't have known he was king. But to them some, there were some who gazed upon his face and saw his kingly crowd, and they knew that he was the kingly. And there were some who knew that he was the Messiah, and they waited to see him set up his kingdom. And they expected to see him ride into the gate of Jerusalem on a charger. Oh, I remember when the King of Greece came back after being exiled for twelve years, they put him on a white charger when he drove up to the gate of the city of Athens in splendor and woe. And here is the King of Kings. He's not driving, he's not riding on a charger. But I tell you what, he's going to... In Revelation nineteen he comes out of heaven riding on a white horse. That's huge. He is the king of kings. He is the Lord of lords. He is coming back to the age. That's not what he came for when he came to the age. God had a different object in view altogether. God had a mystery hidden down to the ages, never revealed to the sons of man. God had a mystery. God was going to form a church. He dealt with the children of Israel down through the years and they had rejected him and despised him and rebelled against him and worshipped idols and put God out of their lives and God had to reject his people and God had another plan. But it was an eternal plan worked out in the past ages of eternity that the Son of God should have a bride, the Son of God should have a church and he came here to win a church to himself. And the whole object of his coming was that many women from Jews and Gentiles should be made members of his body, his church, and one day share eternity with him. And it's because of that that he went to the place called Calvary and bore our sins in his own body on the street. And here in our reading this morning, the king comes to his city. We won't go into the details. We've had them this morning so beautifully put. It was a marvel to me. No, it wasn't. It would have been a marvel if any other man had sat on that untamed court. He would have had a job, but the Lord Jesus set up and the court was perfectly saved. Never been broken in. And he submitted himself to be written upon by the Son of God. Well, wonderful picture. We had a suggestion this morning in our first meeting. Some of us had covered rules. We wanted our way. The order of today, today is I want to do my thing. I want to do what I want to do. But this cold had to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. and what you and I need in our lives, every one of us, I don't care how long you've been saved or if you're not saved at all, what we all need this morning is this, to submit to the King of Kings the Lord Jesus Christ, and let him take the reins. Well, he's had any reins on that coat, but he could teach them so the coat would do what he told him to do. And what we need is to do what he tells us to do. Let him take charge. They didn't control our lives, and then we make a successful plan. But if I'm going to do my thing, I tell you what, so then next. We cannot do it that way. That's not God's. We've got to do His thing. We have to be submitted to the will of God. And so this book came with the Lord, driving on him. And then these old scriptures were fulfilled. Kel ye, the daughter of Zion, behold, thy king, cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ark, an ark, and a colt, the four of an ark, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. And they brought the ark, and he spoke, and put on them their clothes. What a faddle, eh? You think of these wonderful faddles, how proud men are, these writers that write in that road parade at Palisade Park on New Year's Day, how proud they are of their beautiful harness and faddle. My father was a harness maker and I have a little of that pride in me. You know, I used to sew that double, he used to pay me a penny a foot for sewing, a brother of me. That double stitch sewing with an awl and two needles, you know, so long traces and long grains and things at my time. My father used to make beautiful harness for horses. And he was so proud of it. So the Lord came in with other beautiful feathers. He came in sitting on The clothing they put on the wool's back in lowliness and humility. And he drove into the city. And they cast down their garment and they saw the branches before him. And then the people cried. They followed saying, Hosanna. That means save now. They thought he's coming in now. He's got a set of his things. Save now, Lord. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna on the highest. And when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? Who is this? A king written. The multitude says, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee. He was the son of God. Now, very briefly, that was a very particular day in God's timetable. God had planned, God had said to Daniel that a certain period would, what we call Daniel's seventy weeks. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people. And the history of Israel is wrapped up in that wonderful verse in Daniel, and it gives periods when things should happen. And it says when Messiah should be cut off. And there was a great race writer in the last century, said William Anderson, He wrote a book called The Coming Prince, and if you haven't done it, you just get it. If you haven't done it in the story anymore, The Coming Prince. And then he worked out in detail to the very day from the time that the decree was put out by Cyrus to build the city, not the temple, but to build the city and the walls. From that day he works to the very day, and it was exactly in accordance with prophecy that very day that the Lord Jesus ended Jerusalem. Now these scribes and Pharisees and rulers and all these people that knew the law and their scrolls of the Scriptures, they didn't see that. Their eyes were blinded. They hadn't worked out the mathematics they could tell them the day when the Son of God was driving through. But God had it. and the Lord Jesus knew it, and he said, If thou hadst known even now this day, if you'd known this day, and the things that belong to your people, he says today, you've missed the mark. Scripture has been fulfilled before your eyes, and you didn't know it. You were blind and dark, and you didn't know. Now he says to them, Your city is left desolate, The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemy shall cast a treasure about thee, encompass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee. And they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. This day, the time of thy visitation. So the Psalmist says, As he talked to one riding in through the city gate there in that Psalm, a hundred and nineteen, hundred and eighteen, open the gate of righteousness, that this gate of the Lord, which the righteous shall enter, the stone which the building is rejected, has become the headstone of the corner. We'll come back to that later in the week. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day with the Lord. this day, and the Son of God was rising on a coat into the city of Jerusalem, and he said to them, If thou art only known this day, but not, they are hid from thy night. Our time is up. We still live in a day of grace, a wonderful day. The gospel is still going out and God is still calling men and women to believe in his Son and accept them as the Savior. And there's someone in this meeting this morning and you've never done that. You've never yet yielded to him. You've never let him take the reins. You've never let him sit in the saddle. You've never let him take the helm and make him master your life. You're going your own way and planning your own life. This is a wonderful day. It's from Sunday, nineteen seventy-seven. We may never see another Sunday, another Lord's Day. This is the day the Lord has made. And he said to them, All these tragedies should come upon thee, because thou knewest not the day of thy visitation. Dear friends, this is the day of the visitation. The Lord Jesus is here this morning. and speak to you. Would you like to bow your heart to him? Every one of us, even those that know him won't, know him yet. Shall we not bow our hearts before him and yield our lives with Christ to him? For whatever there is left of life that might spend for him, let him be in charge, let him take control. And if you've got some plans you're making of your own stuff, find out if they're his plan before you go any further. And if you're not yet saved, why not bow your head to him now and say, Lord Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God. I believe you came here to save me. I accept you as my personal favor. And if there's someone here out of Christ, I'd love to sit down by your side, so would many others here. He showed you the way he came. Make objections. to the grave. Blessed God, our Father, we thank you now for this wonderful story of how thy beloved Son in grace on this very day set aside by thee for so many ages, four or five hundred years before thou didst say that this would take place and it would take to the very heart. And we know, Lord, thou had set aside a day, and no one knows that day when the Lord Jesus is coming back again. But one day they're going to check that off too. And we should be caught up to meeting together in the air, maybe today. And there's some that don't know the day of visitation they'd be left behind. So pray, Lord, that I'll speak to every heart here now. And if there's one out of Christ, we pray that one might yield to these. Help us, Lord, to yield our lives to these. Sometimes life is difficult. Changes come and... problems came, but come, but we thank you, thou are the same. Give us grace to submit to thy will, to thy way, to thy plan, for every one of us here this morning. We ask it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.