← Prophecy Watchers
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
I want to talk about Palm Sunday because many of you might know I went to Moody Bible Institute for. I took Jewish studies. And why did I take Jewish studies, I often say, is because Jesus was Jewish and if he was Chinese, I would have taken Chinese studies. So you go there because I wanted to learn the background of the Bible, ultimately to teach the Bible and understand everything that's going on. And then I went into archaeology as well for a master's degree. Not so much that I wanted to be an archaeologist, even though, you know, you have these Indiana Jones type dreams and then when you have three young daughters, you go, yeah, that's not going to work. And so going into pastoral ministry, I thought my main goal was simply again, to learn the background of the Bible in order to teach it well, because we know the Bible is a big book and there's a lot of history there. So I want to show you a couple things here. Let's see if hopefully this work. Yep, there we go. So the question for us today is the sermon is Palm Sunday using Jesus for our own ends. And if we. Let's take an examination or at least an assessment of what is the Christian culture today in the sense of very generalized, not so much. I mean, this is a solid Bible believing, evangelical, you know, church that studies, actually studies and believes the Bible. This is pretty rare, right? We talk often in prophecy that, yeah, unfortunately, that we are living in the age of Laodicea, where most of the church is completely woke or they seek to be politically correct. They deny really the gospel. The gospel has become what we understand as a social gospel. The other benefit here is we're in Oklahoma now. I grew up in Oregon, imagine that. And Oregon is. Was always liberal, but now it's like gone off the rails in that sense. And so even the churches there. I remember probably 20 years ago starting to get involved in church. And I was having conversations. Here I am like maybe 25, right. I've been a believer for a few years. And so I'm attending these churches and I was a student of the Bible, but I'm talking to the pastors and they're saying, well, you know, hell's not really real. And I'm like, really? So? And I'm a young person, a young believer, and I'm reading the Bible and I'm seeing what it says in the example. But yet I'm going to the leaders, and the leaders have gone over to the dark side in the sense of simply the same way that Satan says, well, did God really say that? Genesis 3 Is that really what it means? And so in our culture today, we see that it can be somewhat politically correct to be Christian right now. And I would say it's interesting thing though is moving to, I lived in the Midwest for a while, but then coming to Oklahoma, this is part of the Bible Belt, right? Yeah. That creates a whole nother angle because when you're living in Seattle or Portland or the Northwest or even as they say, the left coast, you have all of this kind of craziness. And so to be a Christian, a true Bible believing Christian, it takes a lot of effort to keep, to not be contaminated. But here, everybody's a Christian. Everybody's a Christian here. It's part of the culture. And so when you go, I had to tell my daughters that when they went to school because they went to a Christian college. And, and I said, listen, just because it's a Christian college does not mean anything. And in fact, what would happen, I saw this as a youth pastor, that when students would go off to a Christian college versus a secular college, you go to a secular college, it's nothing but all of the world, right? And so they're very, they're shocked. Those boundaries are very clear. But when they would go to the Christian college, most of them would come back atheist. And I'd say what happened. And what happened was this attrition that would happen is they go in and everybody's a Christian there. So then everybody's sleeping around. But if that Christian's doing it, then it must be okay. If that Christian's getting drunk every weekend, well, it must be okay. And so they would put their guard down. And when we look at our culture today, it's interesting that humanity hasn't changed. We're reliving exactly what you see in the time of Jesus. And that's what I want to talk about today. Because the question is, we're going to talk about Palm Sunday, but I'm going to give you an interesting perspective. What does Tabernacles and Hanukkah have to do with Jesus entry into Jerusalem? So I want to show you some things. This is a typical Sukkah, right? This is the feast of Tabernacles. It's the feast of Sukkot. It happens in the fall. And as we know, the. They had to live in the wilderness. The Jews, the Israeli, the Israelites had to live in the wilderness. And this was a celebration that God gave them in Leviticus 23. So this is just kind of a modern. When they celebrate it today, we also know the Feast of Hanukkah. I want to get to the background of what that is, the eight branched candlestick. But I want to read to you something because here. So let's go to second Maccabees. Okay, this is not scripture, but the Book of Maccabees is very interesting as a historical document because it provides history of what had happened basically around 165 BC in the land of Israel. And so what you see here is one of the most wicked kings that existed part of the, I said the Greek empire, but specifically the Seleucids. After Alexander the Great came into the land of Israel and passed through, basically he spread what is known as Hellenism. And Hellenism is just the Greek culture, not just the Greek language, but also the Greek gods, everything you can imagine. So what would follow him is basically his followers and the kings would enforce Greek culture. Now, as we know to the Jews credit, they were like, we're not Greeks, we worship God. And so we're not going to accept the Greek culture and all of its pantheon of gods. And so Antiochus Epiphanes, this very wicked king, he came in and hated the Jews because of their devotion to not worship any of the Greek gods and only worship the God of the Bible. So he came in and really just slaughtered thousands and thousands of Jewish people. And then he offered and slaughtered a pig on the altar. Now if you think about that, that's pretty bad, right? And then he set up an idol to Zeus in the temple. So that led to what is known as the Maccabean Revolt, where they revolted against this and so they ended up overthrowing this Seleucid empire. So here's what you see in the Book of Maccabees. I won't read all this except to say that this is the reference to it. And if you go on, it talks about. Let's start in verse five. Now, upon the same day that the strangers profaned the temple, on the very same day it was cleansed. Even the five and the 20th day of the same month, which is Kislev, this is Hanukkah, okay? So what they did is, you can see, and they kept the eight days with gladness, as in the feast of Tabernacles. So because of what they did, they, they begin to celebrate God giving them this freedom. They overthrow the Seleucid empire. And they said, let's create a festival and let's have it be eight days like the feast of Tabernacles. And so the story is that Hanukkah in Hebrew just means dedication. So they rededicated the temple, they went in and they found some olive oil that they would put in the menorah and. But they only had enough oil for one day. But miraculously, it lasted eight days. That's why you have the eight branched candlestick of the menorah versus the seven. So, but this is what it says. So they held the feast as of tabernacles, when as they wander in the mountains and dens like beasts, therefore they bore branches and fair boughs and palms also, and sang psalms unto him that had given them this good success in cleansing his place. They ordained also by a common statute, decreed that every year those days should be kept of the whole nation of the Jews. So this is roughly again, 164 B.C. why, why to bring this up? Because in the first century, you know, Jesus is walking around. This is really recent. This is, you know, not. Not too long, maybe 200 years prior. And so you think about in our. Our country, our own history. You can see here again in First Maccabees, which is here about 25 years later, there was another basically fight where they were getting rid of the garrison of this Seleucid, basically, kingdom. But notice what they did here. It says they entered into the 3 and 20th day of the second month in the 175th year with Thanksgiving and branches of palm trees, and with harps and cymbals and with vials and hymns and songs. And because a great enemy was crushed out of Israel, and then he ordained this other festival as well, which hasn't been followed as much as Hanukkah. So I want to show you something from this time frame. These are real. Has many. And coins. And what do you see here? What's. What's the big, you know, what's the bright. What stands out to you? Palm trees. Right. So these are. These are the Hasmonean kings. This is the Maccabean revolt, led to the Hasmonean dynasty, which brought a whole bunch of kings or kings and priests all the way down to roughly about 75 B.C. which. That's when Rome came in, about 60 B.C. 40 B.C. and then Herod. But what you see here is on the coins themselves, palm branches, Very, very important. Okay, you can see there. And it's just. You think, okay, well, what's so big about this? This is from the. I took this picture when I was in Israel. This is from the. The museum there, basically. And you can see that it says Judea Capta. This is actually a. A Roman coin. And you can see a little close there, it's written in Latin. And on one side, on the right you have the, basically the conqueror. And on the left is a woman crying. And Rome minted these coins after they destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. So what they did was the Jews were known for their stubbornness, okay? And of course, everybody knew the history of the Greeks. So because the Jews were very stubborn and they were very difficult people in the sense even war wise. What did they put right in the middle? They put, you can see here, they put a palm branch there. Because the palm branch for the Jew is one that says as you go back here, notice, remember what it says here. I'll show this right there, the branches of the palm trees. Because a great enemy was crushed out of Israel. So I want you to get into the psyche of, of the Jewish people of the first century. For them, a palm branch means a great enemy of God has been removed out of the land. Okay, that's, that's everything. That's what they do, it's what they minted on their coins. And we'll see. I'll show you something else. So when Rome again Hasmoneans, these are Jew, these are Jewish coins. When Rome minted their coin, they put a palm branch in there simply to stick it to them. How's that working for you Jews? How's the palm branch? We crushed you this time. And you can see it here again, getting closer there the SC is the Senatus consulta. So by the decree of the Senate. And I'll show you something else. So here, this is one of the coins that was minted by Vespasian, who was the one who destroyed the Jew, the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. And if you notice over here, what do you see? The same thing, palm branch. And you can see here along the rim, in Latin it says imperial Caesar Augustus, you know, great and mighty Vespasian. All right, but this is a very specific coin. This is a real coin. And they put on there, right there, Judea, Capta Judea is captive to the power of Rome. So you can't, you can't basically resist us. Now, finally, there was a bar revolt in 132 AD where the Jews revolted again against Rome and they actually threw, threw off Rome. It took three years for this revolt to be basically squashed by Rome. But if you notice, what do you see? These again? Jewish coins. Palm branches. Palm branches. Okay, so what I want us to see here is that I want us to enter in now. So we have Jesus being up here in Galilee, okay, this is where Jesus spent most of his time at Capernaum. If you go there today in Israel, which is kind of fun, we. I'm supposed to be there in a few weeks. You think I'm going to go? I'm afraid it's not going to go. I have another trip planned for January, late January of 27. So if you're interested, you can go. If it's open, you can go with us to Israel in January. If you go to israel2027israel2027.com, you'll find it. But anyways, so my plan was to go and to travel all the way up to Mount Hermon and go right on the Lebanon border, which is probably not the wisest thing, but there's a whole bunch of stuff I want to film up there as well and look at some of the archeology. So, but let's get ourselves into the mindset here for a moment. Because Jesus spent most of his time up around the Sea of Galilee, Bethsaida. We know that's where Peter and Andrew are from, Tiberius. Right there on the. I'm surprised they don't have it up here. But on the top left is Capernaum, where, where Jesus from. You can see Nazareth. So Jesus comes down. I'll show you here on this big one, he's walking down the last week of his life. Okay, so he comes from Galilee, he comes down along the Jordan river. And he would come to. Over there to Jericho. And then when you come to Jericho, you're, you're in this, you're in this valley. It's where the river is. So you got to go up to Jerusalem. That's why all the time in the Bible it'll say, let's go up, let's go up. Let's go up to the, to the Mountain of the Lord. Because you go up, even today, if you're up in Galilee, you're going to say, we're going to go up to Jerusalem, which is, you think, well, that's south. Usually we think up is north, right? But in the mindset, think of the geography. We're going up. So to go from Jericho to Jerusalem, you're climbing up the mountains because Jerusalem is on the central spine of where all the mountains are. And so when you come up to the Mount of Olives, you're coming up from, from the east over and you're cresting the Mount of Olives. This is what you see. You see the entire Temple Mount area. Now, obviously In Jesus's day, there would have been a temple there and not a golden dome. Okay? But this was the view. And so I want us to get our minds around this for a moment, because now this is down. So we're standing up here looking down on this valley. This Kidron valley is between us and the Temple Mount area. And this is from that valley looking up towards where we were standing. This is the Mount of Olives. And so Jesus, what he's going to be doing. And right on the backside of that is Bethany, where Jesus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, where he spent most of his time. So if you have your Bibles, I want us to start here for a moment because I want us to get the portrait. We're going to start in Matthew chapter 12, actually. And I want to read something to you, because what you see in the Gospel of Matthew is you see this shift. And Jesus had been preaching for several years. And as we know, for the most part, there were people that followed him, but the leadership was giving him challenges and difficulties. And finally in Matthew chapter 12, they do something really, really bad. Jesus had come and he had cast out a demon from a person who was deaf and mute. Now, that was a. That was a very specific miracle, because in Jew, in the Jewish mindset, when you were to cast out a demon, you needed to know the name of the demon. So you would say, what's your name? And we see this in other passages where Jesus says, what's your name? And what'd they say? Legion. So how do you cast out a demon from a guy that is mute? And that was a messianic miracle. So Jesus comes along and to show them who he was, and he casts the demon out. And in Matthew 12, it says. And what was their response? Well, he only casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub. And Jesus said, you know what? I'm done. Basically, I'm done. He says in Matthew 12, therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven of men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks the word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven of him either in this age or in the age to come. And what he does is, this is the point of no return for the Jewish leadership. He says, this signal is not going to be forgiven. And then what he begins to do is, he pronounces in the rest. We won't go into all of it, but if you read the rest of Matthew chapter 12, he says, Judgment is going to come upon this generation. Judgment's going to come upon this generation. In fact, Sodom and Gomorrah is going to stand up in judgment against this generation on that day. Because all the miracle, if the miracles done here were done for Sodom, they would have repented. And what we know is that what happened 40 years later, from this 70 A.D. the temple is destroyed. So Jesus immediately begins his ministry changes here. So if you turn to Matthew 13, you think, okay, well, what changed? Well, you'll see it here. So now all of a sudden, where Jesus was out preaching very typical sermons, you know, calling them to repentance, calling them to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is here. The Pharisees commit this horrible sin. And he says, that's it. This is not forgivable. And then he begins to speak to the people now in parables. Now, see, as Christians, we think, well, parables are meant to help us understand, right? The word parable in Greek just means to throw alongside. And as a Christian, when we read the parables, they can be pretty challenging sometimes, but other times we go, yeah, yeah, I see. This is a story. This helps me understand. But in fact, if that's true for you, you need to be blessed by that. Because notice what happens here. Jesus says in Matthew 13:10, or the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? See, Jesus didn't speak in parables before this. A shift had taken place. So Matthew 12, this judgment goes. And then now all of a sudden, he starts speaking parables like, you know, all the time. And he says, he answered and said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. He says, now I'm hiding the truth from the wicked. But for you who are part of my followers, it'll make sense to you, but for them it won't. There's a shift that takes place. He says, forever has to him. Whoever has which is referring to knowledge, forever has to him. More will be given and he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away. So the little bit of knowledge that they might have had, Jesus said, it's going to be removed from them. Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled. And he goes on, but he says in verse 16, but blessed are your Eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. So when we think about this shift, something is taking place within the people there. Okay? We also know in Matthew 16, this is. You see a shift as well in Jesus ministry where he had been preaching the kingdom. The kingdom. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here we go. I'm here. The kingdom is here. And then they commit this unpardonable sin. They attribute his miracle to Satan. Blaspheme the Holy Spirit. He says, that's it. It's done. Then he starts preaching in parables to the disciples, helping them to understand, blinding the rest of them. And then he says, oh, by the way, I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm going to die. So now he begins to talk about his purpose. Because in some sense it's true that we know that he was always destined to die, right? Scripture says that it's prophetically planned. But there was a certain sense that God had to offer them the kingdom, and he did. And they rejected it. And they're responsible. God didn't force him to reject it. So what you see also is, again, let's get in the mindset of the week right before the resurrection, his passion week. We know as well that, for example, in John 6 it says that Jesus wouldn't go to this place because he knew that the people were going to take him by force. It says this in John 6:15. They were going to take Jesus by force and make him king, because what'd they want? They wanted a king. And so Jesus says, I'm not going there. And over and over they would try to get him to do something. He'd say, no, it's not my hour. It's not my hour. Just it's fun to do a. Do a little Bible study or a word study of the word hour in the Book of John, the Gospel of John, and over and over, it's not my hour. It's not my hour. It's not my hour. Even. Remember in John 2, with Mary, with a miracle of the. Of the water and the wine, he says, it's not my hour. It's not my hour. It's not my hour. And then he says, finally, when he. When he's getting ready to go, here we are, Palm Sunday. Bring his. Bring himself as it enters into Jerusalem. He says, my hour has come. Who's in Control, no one's pushing around. And here, you know, what's comforting is here's the question. Was Jesus ever in a hurry? Talk about that peace, the peace of mind that he had from the Father. He's like, I'm not in a hurry. I'm following God's plan. That's a good lesson for. For all of us in that sense. So In John chapter 12, we see this John, chapter 12, verse one. And I'll show. I'm going to show you. I'll show you something. Let's see what else I got here. Okay, we're going to see. We're going to see three really lessons for us today in this passage. And we're going to see what John, how John is presenting this information. So as you can see here again, we're standing on the Mount of Olives. We're looking down towards the temple. You see the people there, they're throwing down their, what, the palm branch? All right, so it says this in. We'll start in verse 9, John 12. 9. Now, a great many of the Jews knew that he was there. Okay? So basically he's up on the Mount of Olives and hanging out with Bethany. This is John chapter 12, the previous chapter in John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. I mean, that's like one of the greatest miracles. Everybody knew who Lazarus was. Lazarus was dead for four days. I mean, that sets it off. Jesus was. Was away when Lazarus got sick, and he stayed an extra two days just so that Lazarus would die. Then he comes back in John 11, and Mary and Martha there, and they. If you were here, it wouldn't happen. He says, yeah, I know. John 11:35, shortest passage in the Bible, Jesus wept. So all of this has happened. The whole, the whole southern parts of Israel, in the sense of Judea, Jerusalem is filled with all of this basically hoopla about this guy Jesus. Now, I mean, his reputation is just. We thought it was a lot more at the beginning. It's out of control now in a good way. So it says many of the. A great many of the Jews knew that he was there and they came, not for Jesus sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. So the crowds are showing up. And it's interesting, in the Gospel of John, just, just as a reminder here, John is so beautiful. It really is my favorite gospel because John is. John's writing his gospel like 60 years after. He's, he's. He's older, he's in his 80s. And you have. He basically had 60 years of pondering and thinking about this person of Jesus, not only in the, in the ministry that he had with Jesus, but fully coming to grasp who Jesus really, really was. They didn't understand the fullness of who Jesus was. And how does John start his gospel? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and what the Word was God. See, John knew that 60 years later. And he says, we beheld him, we touched him. Oh, we didn't even know it at the time. We just thought he was, you know, we thought he was the Messiah, but. But we didn't know the fullness that he was God in the flesh. So John is able to write all these things with all of this thinking later and be like, let me just tell you what this, this man, this God man, who he really is. But what he also does is he gives a lot of summary statements because in John chapter six, he. He shows us things that the other gospels don't have. For example, in John 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000. And just homework, read John 6 this week. I love going to Israel because I will read John 6 and you have Jesus feeding the 5,000 on the Eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. And then Jesus crosses over, kind of, he kind of sneaks over and he comes back to Capernaum. Well then when you go to Capernaum even today, there you are standing in the synagogue, this 4th century synagogue was, which was built on top of the first century synagogue. You can see the foundation stone. So you're in there and you're reading John 6 and it's, and it's, you're. You're talking about Jesus feeding the 5,000. And he talks about eat my flesh and drink my blood, which is a little, you know, he's using imagery there. But then Jesus says to them, why are you here? He goes, you know why you're here. You're here because I fed you yesterday. That's the only reason you're here today is because I fed you. He goes, don't. Don't seek food that perishes, but seek true food. So Jesus calls them out on the fact these were the people that we would call rubberneckers. Okay, they're going down. They just, they're there for the crowd. In the same way this group shows up because it says that they might also see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also. That's the hardness of what you see here. So Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And they're like well, we got to kill Jesus first of all. But we can't let that guy walk around. We're going to have to kill him, too. Poor Lazarus is. I mean, he's had death already and he's going to get killed again. But notice, think about it. From the typical religious person, oh, this guy Jesus, okay, King of Israel. We've already tried to make him King in John 6. We've already followed him out. He's given us plenty of food. Now we have a guy that can raise people from the dead. Man, if I'm going to join a team, if I'm going to join a king or a messiah, that's the kind of guy I want. He'll feed me. If our troops die. He'll just raise him from the dead. And who can. Who can have victory over that? If you think in their mind it says, but the chief priests decided to put Lazarus to death also because on account of him, many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. The next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast when they had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees and. And they went out to meet him and they cried out, hosanna. Now, hoshannah in Hebrew, this is kind of fun because Jesus name in Hebrew is what we talked about this a while ago. Yeshua, right? So yeshua in Hebrew means to save. It's just a verb. So Jesus name is meant on that. Well, hoshonah is another basically form of the verb which means save us now. Save us now. So they're asking to be saved now. What are they asking to be saved from? Are they worried about their sin? See, this goes back to John 8. John already has this get in your mind where Jesus was having his argument with the Pharisees. And Jesus says, well, if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. And they go, whoa, whoa, we've never been slaves to anybody. You're like, have you not read your own book? I mean, seriously. And he says, the person who is a slave to sin is enslaved. But if I set you free from your enslavement to sin, then you will be free indeed. But they say, hosanna, save us now. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it as it is written, fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him. Therefore, the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. And then it goes on and on. He says, for this reason, the people also met him because they heard that he had done the sign, the sign of Lazarus. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him. So what I want us to see here, a couple things here, is when we think about the misunderstanding, okay? There's no doubt people were coming because of Lazarus, and they were coming because they wanted a political savior. Now, I find it interesting because here in our culture today, there's probably been no greater time, I think, at least in maybe the last 20 years, and I want you to take this very carefully, is that this message is 100% perfect for our time right now. Look, I am conservative all the way, okay? For sure. But what I see happening right now is, oh, yeah, Christianity is great. Trump's a Christian. Trump's a born again Christian, and he's gonna save America. And in fact, America has. We could just rest easy now because Trump's here. Now, I'm not even saying I'm not against Trump by any means, but it's interesting how slippery Satan loves to be like, oh, you love Trump? Oh, yeah, me too. Love Trump. That's great. Satan is always looking to spin anything, and he say, you know, yeah, it's amazing. None of these things would happen. You really need to get behind him and all that. And then now, people, people, it's interesting if you. If you're a Christian, I see this, okay? I speak a lot, right? I'm on social media, so if I say anything critical of Trump, oh, man, they come after you, even if you speak the truth. Like, you know, Billy Crone and I have been doing some stuff lately, and Billy's done some things, and we just talk about his. Trump is pro lgbtq. Oh, man. You think that you called him the Antichrist? Well, that's the other thing. If I don't say he's the Antichrist, I'm blind and deceived. If I say, if he's a savior now, I'm blind and deceived. So you have both polarizations. But what you see right here is, look, the savior of America is Jesus Christ, not Trump. Now, God uses people, all kinds of people, right? No doubt. But what is happening now is, you see even some of the. You know, the even, like the stuff with Charlie Kirk. Horrible, right? But then you start looking and no doubt that ministry is much more political. Okay? And I'm not saying it's bad to be involved in politics. I think that's fine. But don't combine the two. Is Jesus a Republican and he's not a Democrat either. Okay. His kingdom is above and beyond all this. But what's happening is this right here, people are coming and they're seeing Jesus and they're going, oh, we can use that. That's why the title of this message is Using Jesus for our own ends and the people. The way that John presents his themes is the people were seeking to use them as their food production person. They were looking to make him king. They were looking to rescue them. When they are throwing palm branches down. That's why I started with the archeology, the coins. What are they saying? This is the guy that's going to throw off the great enemy. Just like the Greeks, just like what we saw written in the book of Maccabees. Today we see people again looking at their form of Christianity. Is this buffet style religion? Oh, I like a little bit of that. That, that's. Jesus loves me. This I know. Yeah, that's good. Jesus has a plan for my life. Yeah, that's good. But take up my cross daily. Deny myself. Oh, no, that we don't want that. The fact that there's going to be. Jesus is the judge of the living, the dead, and he's going to come back and judge the world one day and he will sentence people to hell. Oh, no, no, that's too mean. We don't want that part of it. We want the king that feeds us and that gives us our best life. Now, Humanity hasn't changed. And as we come again, I hope that we begin to shift. As we do, it's a good thing to shift our mind towards the resurrection, towards Jesus Passion Week, towards when he dies for us and he's resurrected. But here we have again this gathering together and they're throwing down their palm branches. I want to read another passage, Luke 19. If you want to go there, you can. Otherwise I'll just read it for us. Luke 19:34. It's a parallel passage. So as we know, Jesus is getting ready to fulfill prophecy. Zechariah 9. 9. Bringing out the donkey, your king will come to you. But if you notice, Jesus doesn't come on a stallion, comes on a donkey. Okay. It says they said the disciples said to the guy to get the donkey. The Lord has need of him. And they brought the donkey to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. And as he went, many spread their clothes on the road. And we saw. And we also know they put their clothes and they put palm branches. Now, as he was now drawing near the descent of the Mount Olives, which we just saw, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen. Okay, 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. But he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. Now, as he drew near the city, okay, let's get in the mindset of Jesus for a moment. Jesus is coming down, he's on the donkey. He deliberately sets this up. It's not my hour. It's not my hour. It's not my hour. Now it's my hour to be glorified. He gets on the donkey and he's coming down. And all these people are claiming him to be king. Is it true that he's king? But Jesus gives in one sense, doesn't really give them credit, because he says, even if they don't say anything, the stones will declare who I am. That's interesting. So you would think at that moment, oh, man, this is awesome. Lord, Father, here I am. I'm being declared king. Whether it's by the people or whether it's by the stones. I'm finally getting really the glory and the credit that he's worthy of. You think that would probably make him happy? As he drew near, he saw the city and he wept over it. Jesus starts weeping over the city. He's looking, basically, I'll go back here. He's looking at this. He sees the temple, he sees the people there, and he starts crying, weeping. Now you can imagine the people, they're waving their branches. Look at that. He's so happy, he's crying. Could not be more wrong. This is clearly their misunderstanding. Everything about his message. He wept over it. Saying, if you had known, even you, especially in this, your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. They wanted a king, not a savior. They wanted a political savior. They weren't worried about repentance. I mean, that Jesus, the first word out of Jesus mouth when he's going to preaching is repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The first word that John the Baptist said, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. There needs to be a change of mind as a. When you preach the gospel, when we preach the gospel, you don't go to somebody and say, oh, just add Jesus to your life. That's great. Jesus loves you, has a plan for your life. Just add Jesus to your life and everything's going to be fine. We go and we say, no, you need to repent. You don't just add Jesus because you think, oh, Jesus loves you. He's going to bless you. Oh, yeah, bring him in. That's fine. I'll just continue my life of sin. Why not? If he blesses me in it, even better. There's a certain level of understanding that, no, we need to change our mindset about who God is. God's holy. This is what was happening here. He goes on to say in Luke 19, for days will come upon you, Jerusalem, when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and enclose you in on every side and level you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. And this goes back to what Jesus said in Matthew 12, you guys aren't getting it. And that's it, it's done. Now what you see in the nation Israel, no doubt the nation Israel had a destiny with 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed and they were that that sin would never be forgiven. You could be saved individually. And we see a lot of the Pharisees got saved after this. But what we see here is again, I'll go to the next. Is that they didn't understand you have the misunderstanding of the king's subjects, which they had their own agenda. They were seeking to use Jesus for what they wanted. They didn't understand the prophecy that in Zechariah 9 and others that Jesus would come, especially Isaiah 53, that he would come as a suffering servant. Isaiah 53:1 says, Lord, who has believed our report? Jesus shows up. And by the end, Jesus was alone. All the disciples abandoned him, as we know, in the garden of Gethsemane. And they did not realize that Jesus was the prince of peace. But again, what they wanted was a king. They wanted a person that was going to deliver them. Now, I guess we can wrap it up here for me, I think, okay. It's easy to come and to see the message in Scripture and to preach a message. And I think, have I ever sought to use God for my own desires. So we can't. We can acknowledge what we see here, but we realize, hopefully with humility, to go, yeah, Lord, I've wanted my own will. And that's really the question is, as we kind of think about what's happening is the palm branches that we are laying down for Jesus. Remember, these people had zeal, they were there, but their palm branch was like, this is great. I will lay down my palm branch, I'll lay down my clothes, because God is going to give me what I want. But I think Jesus again in Luke 9:23, if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross. How often? Daily. Did he really have to say, daily? Oh, take up his cross daily and come follow me. And Jesus says, if you. The person that wants to save their own life, save their own desires, their own will, their own plans, everything else is going to lose it. But if they lose what they want for the sake of the kingdom, they will gain what matters most, and that is eternal life. And don't we want God's plan? Anyway, for those of you that maybe have been walking with the Lord for a while, have you ever thought back and said, I'm glad God didn't answer that prayer. We all have, right? When I see again, when we meditate now again, Palm Sunday's next Sunday. But as we meditate, we go, lord, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be that guy that says my will and not yours. I don't want to say and tell the Lord that it's about what I want. The goal of the Christian life is to deny ourselves. And ultimately, as Jesus said in the garden, not my will, Father, but yours be done. And as we look at our culture today, it's good that there's a lot of. There's great things happening in our country. Right? No doubt. I'm glad the borders are secure. I'm glad people are being held accountable. Those are all wonderful things. But whoever's sitting in the White House is not going to save America. The only thing that's going to save America is the gospel. And as we continue, I think we can do both. But obviously the gospel and the kingdom is superior to anything else, and we should never be discouraged by anything. God has a plan. God hasn't. You know, it doesn't matter who's in the White House. God always is working. But what I see is that the world, they want Jesus throne but not his cross. That's what they wanted. And as Christians, I think, man, I don't. I don't. I'm not here. I'm not here to dictate to God whatever that is. They want his crown of gold, but not his crown of thorns. They want his salvation, but not his humility. And as we know, God gives grace to the humble but resists the proud. I think all of us, as we look into our lives, we can go. When God brings or allows, either way, when he allows a challenge or a. A trial or anything else in our life, do we. Or discipline even, do we rebel against that? Do we begin? I'll say it this way. Look, as a pastor, as we're saying as pastors, you get to see a lot of things. You get to be with a lot of people. You know, children dying, suicides. I mean, and really the real tough things of life, people losing their job, whatever. And so you're sitting there, and the wisest thing is not to say anything, is just to be there. Don't be Job's friend, right? And try to have too many answers. But as you sit there, the first thing in those situations, when that person is in that moment, the first question. What's the first question? Why? And what that leads to is the second question. If God is so good, then why did he allow this to happen? I go, I don't know. But we know that God's good. And sadly, many of those situations, you see where that person departs and they begin to not have faith in God, they begin to doubt him. And they'd say, no, God's not good. But what they did is they came to say, if God is good, he's going to make sure that I avoid all of this, this, this, this, and this. And if he allows it, then he's not good. That's the same person that's putting down their palm branch and saying, I will worship God if he does it my way. Now there's compassion. I'm not saying that we can't go up and down. That's just the way it is. But the message is for us, when we look around is, are we going to be that type of vocal follower of God where we're going to put our own palm branch down? Let's pray, shall we? Father in heaven, we thank you for the power of your word. I thank you, Lord, as well, for just the background that we can get if we understand again, what's happening in the mindset of people, especially as we see in the Gospel of John, I pray, Lord as well, that your word brings encouragement to us that he is our king, he is our Savior but he came on a donkey Lord to save us from our sins which is the most important thing that we need saved from. Yes you are a God who blesses. You are a God who as your word says you reward those who diligently seek you. But we also know Lord that there are challenges in our life and we are to take up our cross daily and to deny ourself and to follow after you. I pray Lord that we would be those that even in the midst of challenges that we would respond in faith that we walk by faith and not by what we see. Ask Lord that you would continue to equip us and strengthen us by your Holy Spirit that we would be laying down our palm branches truly submitting to whatever your will is and not telling you what it needs to be. We thank you Lord for your word and the message. Today in Jesus name we pray. Amen.