THE LORD HAS NEED OF IT
A. McBride
Matthew 21: 1–11; Mark 11: 1–6; Luke 19: 29–34; John 12: 12–15
There are not many incidents in the life of the Lord Jesus recorded in Scripture which are recorded in all four gospels, but this is one of them. I think the point would be that the Spirit of God would have a message for us, and the message is the same in every gospel, “the Lord has need of it”. That is my message for you tonight, dear friend, young or old, that the Lord has need of you. Now, there is something very beautiful about that, the Lord has need of you as you have need of Him. How much need have you of Him? Do you feel your need of Him?
Every one has a need of Christ; we all need Christ as a Saviour, and the gospel is preached on the basis of the great work of Christ in redemption, that is He has effected redemption; He has met the whole claim of God against sin, He has met it on the cross at Calvary. That is the basis on which the preaching goes out, that God from His side has met the need of man, but then He also has a need of you.
Now, I would like to speak first of all about the favourableness of this opportunity you have today. It is interesting that in each of these sections it tells us where this incident took place.
It says in Matthew, “Bethphage, at the mount of Olives”, and Mark includes Bethany in it. There is an environment in which the Lord is moving and in which He is conveying a message, and that message, I would address particularly to the young people here. I would address myself to you especially because the Lord has need of you in your youth. But it is not only that. Matthew would say I need both, I need the ass and the colt, I need older people and younger people. So I would say to you, dear friend, whatever your age, whatever your history, the Lord has an interest in you; He has a desire to have you. You know man was not created for his own pleasure; he was not created just to live a loose life, man was created to be for God’s pleasure. It says that God created him in His own image. That means there is to be an answer from every one of our hearts, from every human being, there is to be an answer to God Himself and to His love.
Now we know that sin came into the world; sin has caused the distance between God and man, sin has separated us, as the prophet says, separated you from your God. I wonder, dear friend, are you still separated from God? Are you living in a life of sin? Are you away from God? Have you any knowledge of God as a Saviour God? Have you any knowledge of a God with a heart of love and grace beaming toward you today? Whatever you may think of God, His thinking of you, is one of infinite and tender compassion; one of infinite love; one of infinite longing. He has made provision for your salvation and for your return to God. Would you take this way back today? Would you return to God today? Would you accept that you are at a distance from God because of your sins, and you need a Saviour?
Here we have this wonderful, blessed matter that the Lord would introduce. He would say to persons, I need you. Now it is interesting that in almost every case, before this incident occurs there is also another incident, and that is of persons who have a need of Christ. In Matthew it is two blind men; two persons who were living in darkness. Are you dark as to God? Has the light of the gospel not shone? Are you like these two men in the section before where we read? They
were blind, they were in moral darkness. Matthew has in mind that persons are secured for God and secured for His kingdom; secured for power in His kingdom, and one of the features of the kingdom is light. God would open up your heart by displaying the greatness and glory of Himself as a Saviour God. Matthew emphasises the darkness that is in the world; he emphasises the power of the devil in the world. I do not need to tell you about the moral darkness that is in this world, you know that well; you know the power that is out there and is in the world, the power of the devil operating through men, through drink, drugs and all these things, all that marks the world. The Lord Jesus met all of that in Matthew’s gospel. He brings in two blind men, two men too who were lawless men, he brings them in to show the power that the kingdom of God has, to break down souls and bring them into the blessing, wonderful blessing!
So He says, I need you, “an ass tied, and a colt with it”. Do you accept that, for the moment, here in this room in these four walls you are tied, and you are tied in for your blessing? God would say to you, I want you for the kingdom of God; I want you to come into My kingdom and into the blessedness of it; I want you to come into the knowledge of sins forgiven. That is Matthew’s gospel, that Jesus came to save His people from their sins. He would bring you into a sense of power that is apart from the power that is in the world; to save you from your sins. Can I ask you, What about these sins of yours? Are you saved from them? Do you know the Saviour? Have you taken for yourself the value of that work that He accomplished on Calvary’s cross? There it stands, and stands in all its glory. God would continually bring that before us, the great work that Christ has done for all men. It is there available for you, and He would say to you, What about your sins? That is a direct question. What about your sins? It says of Jesus, “he shall save his people from their sins”, Matthew 1: 21. I know that refers to Israel, but it applies to you and me just as well; He will save us from our sins.
How will He do it? He will save us by taking these sins on Himself, bearing them on the cross at Calvary. You can come to Him and find that you can have a release.
Again He says, “Come to me”. I know He speaks to those who labour, but are you not labouring? Are you not labouring under the burden of your sins? “Come to me, all ye who labour”, Matthew 11: 28. O, friend, what God would do for you! He would lift you as you come to Jesus, He would relieve you of every liability, these sins that would take you to hell.
The Lord Jesus has died, and He has suffered in view of your being clear of them, finding forgiveness of the ones that are past, and power from Him in His Holy Spirit to be helped to live a life which is honourable to God and no longer in sin. Come to Him and find the yoke the gospel would bring in, the ass and the colt. Could I speak to someone here who is older?
What about your sins? What about your links with Christ? Have you come to Christ? Could I speak to someone younger, one who might be a colt? Have you come to Christ? Have you trusted the Lord Jesus as your Saviour? Have you come into this yoke with Him? He says,
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”. What a change in our life that would be if we take on the yoke of Christ and learn from Him. He is a different kind of man, you know; He is different from every other man in the world. He is different from you and me, but we can take on this yoke as loving Him, coming to Him, taking on this yoke and learning from Him, and find rest to our souls. I trust every one here has found rest to their souls; rest in the precious blood of Jesus; rest in the work of Christ, that glorious work that has been done to God’s satisfaction. That is the power of the kingdom coming into your soul—“Behold thy King cometh to thee”. O, friend, that is Christ; God in the gospel is saying that Christ is coming to you, Christ is available for you. You can find the blessedness of salvation in that blessed Man as you submit that He needs you.
There is one thing that is interesting in these
illustrations that we have read, that no one is resisting, not even those who own the colt. The Lord sent for the colt. Imagine these two disciples going along seeing people they had never seen before, but the Lord had sent them. Here they had this colt and without even asking they unloose it and take it away. If anyone would say, What are you doing? the reply is, The Lord hath need of him. There is no resistance in the colt, and there is no resistance in the people.
Now I tell you that means everything is in your favour. Nobody is going to make any resistance to you coming to Jesus tonight. Indeed they will help you, they will cast their clothes on you, they will make a way for you, they will cast them on the ground; they will make way for you as you commit yourself to Jesus. Now what about you? What about the colt itself? Is there resistance there? You know the gospel is preached for the obedience of faith. If you want blessing, dear friend, God is anxious that you might have that blessing, but you must submit. There is no blessing without submitting to Jesus; without being obedient, without accepting the terms of the glad tidings. They are not your terms, nor my terms, they are God’s terms. You accept that you are a sinner and you need a Saviour, and there is no resistance. All that falls in with the wonderful grace of God.
Now the reason I read this from Mark is that he tells us the same incident, the same conditions, the same place, the same area of blessing, you might say, but he says that they went and found it. They found it at the crossway. Now Mark is a very direct writer, he is the writer of the shortest gospel. Mark would say, I was wrong, I was not obedient. There is no blessing unless you are obedient. Mark would say to you, I really was not obedient. There was a time in his history when he came to a cross-road in his life and he went the wrong way.
O, friend, I hope you are not going the wrong way. You are at a cross-road in your life today; the very fact that you are sitting under the sound of the gospel puts you at a cross-road. If the tie is loosened what will you
do, where will you go? This colt was tied, and he was tied round the house, you know. God would encompass you with wonderful blessing. He has brought you into this room today into the very area of blessing. If you are loosened and go out of that door, Where will you go?
Will you go the way of Christ, or will you go the way of the world? Mark says he went the wrong way and he illustrates it later in the gospel by a young man who followed Jesus. He had a loose garment on him, and when he ascertained where he stood in regard of Christ he ran away, he went the wrong way and he was lost for a time.
Now I want you to understand that Mark would say to you this is important, this is serious. It is characteristic of his writing in this short gospel that he uses the word straightway. Now there is no time for vacillation, there is no time for anything else; it is a straight and clear issue where you are with Christ—the Lord has need of you. Has He not met all your need?
Have you not found that blessed Saviour who would meet every need of yours? He met it before a holy, righteous God at Calvary’s cross; He went into death itself and removed the penalty of death for you. Mark would tell you that He did all these things for me. Friend, He did them for you too you know; He went into the grave for you, He shed His blood for you; He bore the wrath of God against sin for you, and He now lives. Do you know where He is?
He is in heaven, and He lives in heaven. What for? He lives in heaven for you, a Saviour for you. God has in mind that persons should be saved; saved in the fullest sense of salvation, that is brought into the joy and liberty and consciousness of having your sins forgiven, having them met by the blood of Christ, having justification before God with the sentence of having distance before God gone, so that you can live now as it says, in the power of His life, that is the life that Christ has in heaven; that is, the power of life is to mark a converted person. May every one here be that. Mark would say to you that it is important, God needs you.
Jesus needs you, twice it says it here, the Lord needs it. My young friends, Can I leave that with you? The urgency of the moment means you have no time to waste. Mark would say it is urgent.
But as well as telling us that he went the wrong way, Mark tells us that he came back to the right way; he was a recovered person. Mark was, as it were, reconverted; he had been a Christian before but he went the wrong way; somewhere in his Christian pathway he deviated and he went away, there was a cross-road, and he went away. You can read about it in the Acts if you like, but he came back, and someone said he was serviceable; Mark became serviceable. Are you serviceable to the Lord, young friend, older friend? What about your life, have you had a deviation in it, in your Christian life? There is room for recovery. Mark would tell you that. He tells us again about that young man, not now with a garment loosely hung around him, but sitting there clothed in a white garment. Where was it? Sitting at the tomb of Jesus! That is, Mark came back in His life, in identification with the death of Christ.
Now that is the way of recovery, come back to identification with the death of Christ, the way that that blessed One has gone. It says he sat there at the tomb of Jesus, a testimony that Christ had died. Mark was saying, Yes, and I have died too, and he was able to associate himself in power now, living power, with a blessed dead Christ. That work of Christ’s has been done, and He is now a risen, glorious Saviour; Jesus is not dead now, Jesus is alive. O, glory be to His name and those who love Him! Come back in the history of your soul, come back to that and begin to live again in the life of Christ. The gospel would help you.
In Luke it is the same thing, “the Lord has need of it”. Has that message got through tonight?
Young friend, has it got through to you? Jesus needs you. If He needed you in Matthew, He needed you for His kingdom; if He needed you in Mark, He needed you for His testimony, He needed you to represent Him; and in Luke’s gospel He needs you that you might be here for His praise and glory. There is something beautiful about Luke’s gospel, it is full of grace. God in wondrous grace is appealing to all men. You know, God’s grace is for everybody; there is nobody outside the range of grace; it reaches out to you tonight, that very grace of God. Do you know that Matthew and Mark tell us about the atoning sufferings of Jesus on the cross? They tell us about His forsaking and that awful cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew and Mark tell us about that, and that is intended to affect us, that Christ has borne the whole question of sin before a holy and a righteous God.
Luke does not say that, but what he does tell us is something else, that Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. You know that is wonderful grace. You will remember in Joshua’s day there was the time when Joshua spoke to God, and God made the sun stand still in the heavens. There never was a day like that when God answered the voice of a man. Now that was like Jesus on the cross. This day of grace in which we are, this present opportunity here is continuing because of these precious words of Jesus on the cross at Calvary, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. That has spanned the whole dispensation, and will span it right to the end. God in His wonderful grace is appealing, extending the time. Do you know that God has divided time since the very beginning of time. He has divided it into certain epochs, certain dispensations, and this one, the dispensation of grace, is the longest one of all. O, friend, think of the wonder of God’s grace.
I will tell you something else, not only is forgiveness free, not only has God extended the day of grace because of the words of the Lord Jesus, but He has given too His Holy Spirit, and according to Luke’s gospel those who believe can have the Holy Spirit by asking.
Elsewhere it says you get it because you obey, but Luke, in grace, says you can have it for the asking. That is not to demean it in any sense, but it is to magnify the greatness of the heart of God who would give His Holy Spirit to those who ask. Have you had forgiveness? Do you know forgiveness? Have you had the gift of the Holy Spirit? Have you asked? That is Luke’s gospel, he would say, Have you asked? Come into the blessedness and glory of that and find that you can have part in the praise of God. Luke produces what we speak of as priestly persons, persons who respond to God, who respond to grace. Have you done that? What about your voice, is it heard? Do you speak to Jesus in thanksgiving? Do you sing to Him? If you are in the meeting, do you take part? Do you find the blessedness of the liberty that Luke would give us? Because at the end of the gospel it finishes with a praising company who are attached to a Man in heaven. Now the Lord has need of you for that too. He needs you for a part in the service of God. He has met all your needs, and He needs you.
Now in John, it is the same incident, but presented in a different way. Here it says that Jesus found the colt Himself, He does not send disciples; He did not use the preacher, He did it Himself. I would like to say to you, dear friend, that despite all that has been said tonight, and all the preachings you have heard before, what it comes down to is your own direct relations with Jesus; it is just between you and Him. In John’s gospel it is between yourself and Him. It says in Matthew, I want you for My kingdom; in Mark, I want you for My testimony; in 58
Luke, I want you for My praise. Do you know what it says in John?—I want you for My family. I want to bring you into the blessedness and joy of the Christian family. John presents the Father and the Son. He presents the Christian family; he presents the blessedness of what it is to come into the knowledge of God as your Father. It says at the beginning of John’s gospel that to those who receive Christ, to them gave He
the right to be called the children of God. It is one of the blessings of the gospel that God would bring you into.
Now you have to come into this yourself, nobody can bring you in. We can present it to you and we love to present it to you. O, if only I could speak better about my Saviour to win your heart for Him! He has won my heart and I would like to win your heart; from my heart I would like to invite you to accept the fact that Jesus wants to find you. He wants to sit on you, as it were; He wants to take over your life to bring you into the joy, and the preciousness, and the protection of this family. He wants you to learn the protection in the family of God and come into the feelings and affections of the Saviour God. He is not a God at a distance, He is a God who has love; a God with the desire to have creatures near to Him, but near to Him in the sense of family relationships; so that those who believe and trust in the Lord Jesus are called the children of God. Would you not like to come into that? Well, He has need of you in that, because the family of God is an eternal thought, and will go right through. It is not just for time it is for eternity, and the Lord would say to you, This is your time now, this is your opportunity, I want you in it. He wants to have your company, not only now but in all eternity.
Well, may there be, with every one of us, an answer to this simple message. O, if I could have conveyed it in more power and more simplicity, but there is this simple message to you, that the Lord in the gospel has met all your need, and He has need of you. May it be so.
Preaching at Glasgow
21 June 1998