Gtcotr/ss041419
Today
is Palm Sunday and the beginning of the holiest week in all of Christendom.
Today is the day in history that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the 500-year-old
prophecy of Zechariah … (Zechariah 9:9 ¶ “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout,
O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just
and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a
donkey.) … and rode into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey to the cheers
of the crowd shouting “Hosanna, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of
the Lord.”
Jesus,
the Son of God, is the Perfect Lamb who was sacrificed at Passover that year.
His blood paid the debt for all sin forever. The payment was just in the eyes
of God. One Perfect Lamb without blemish. Jesus is the promised Messiah. 800
years earlier Isaiah prophesied concerning the Messiah:
Isaiah 53 NKJV
1 ¶ Who has believed our
report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before
Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or
comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should
desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected
by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our
faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 ¶ Surely He has borne our
griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God,
and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for
our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement
for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone
astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was
afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison
and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from
the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave
with the wicked — But with the rich at His death, Because He had done
no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD
to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an
offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His
days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of
His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall
justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide
Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the
transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the
transgressors.
For
generations scholars wondered how this coming Messiah could suffer and die as a
servant but still be a victorious King and deliver them from their mortal
enemies. The disciples didn’t understand it either. How
could this Lamb of God be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah?
Today
is the day in His-Story, on a Sunday, about the year AD30, when the great
multitude who had heard Jesus was coming to Jerusalem for the Feast of
Passover:
John 12 NKJV
13 took branches of palm
trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He
who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!”
14 Then Jesus, when He had
found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:
15 “Fear not, daughter of
Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
16 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.
Before
Jesus was resurrected from that tomb, victorious over sin, death, hell and the
grave, the disciples did not understand. After His resurrection, they did!
Before
the resurrection the disciples were confused. They had believed Jesus was the
Son of God and the Promised Messiah. They had seen Him walk on water, heal the
sick, multiply fish and bread to feed thousands … they never expected Him to
die. They watched Him be shamefully betrayed, unfairly arrested, wrongly
accused, viciously maligned, brutally beaten, unjustly sentenced and cruelly
crucified. He died alone, rejected, weak, empty and crying out to a God who had
forsaken Him.
Surely
this could be no Messiah. He could never be the eternal King of the Jews. If He
could deliver anyone surely, He would have delivered Himself. The disciples did
not understand the scriptures and the prophecies of this Lamb who was a Lion.
At least they did not understand it until the third day when up from the grave
He arose!
This
same Jesus who knew no sin, became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), that He might
willingly enter into death and legally stand face to face with him who had
power over death, that is the devil (Hebrews 2:14).
According
to the scriptures, Jesus came first as a suffering servant. If I may speak for
Jesus for just a moment, “Been there, done that!” Once is enough.
·
The
first time He rode into Jerusalem on the young colt of a donkey.
·
The
first time He acted like a Lamb on its way to be slaughtered.
·
The
first time He “opened not His mouth.”
·
The
first time He was like a sheep headed for the shearers.
·
The
first time He was meek and mild.
·
The
first time He suffered alone.
·
The
first time He was beaten.
·
The
first time He died.
·
But
that was the first time … Been there,
done that!
The
prophets foretold of a coming Messiah who would first be a suffering servant
and die to pay for the sins of all mankind. But that’s not where the prophets
ended their prophecies! And after the resurrection even the disciples
understood. Late in his life the Apostle John wrote:
Revelation 1 NKJV
10 I was in the Spirit on the
Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet,
11 saying, “I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and
send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna,
to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
12 Then I turned to see the
voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
13 and in the midst of the
seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to
the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.
14 His head and hair were
white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire;
15 His feet were like
fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many
waters;
16 He had in His right hand
seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance
was like the sun shining in its strength.
17 And when I saw Him, I fell
at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be
afraid; I am the First and the Last.
18 “I am He who lives,
and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of
Hades and of Death.
19 “Write the things which
you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place
after this.”
Revelation 19 NKJV
11 ¶ Now I saw heaven opened,
and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and
True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.
12 His eyes were like
a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written
that no one knew except Himself.
13 He was clothed with
a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies in heaven,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.
15 Now out of His mouth goes
a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will
rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And He has on His
robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Don’t
be mistaken about the Jesus you now serve. He fulfilled all of the prophecies
about the Messiah coming and suffering and dying to save our souls from eternal
damnation. The next time anyone sees Jesus, He won’t be acting so much like
the Lamb of God, but more like the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
This
is the season of the year when our image of Jesus should be challenged and be
changed. Jesus is not some Namby-Pamby, mild-mannered pushover who loves
everyone so much that He can’t stand the thought of pushing back a little on
sin. The Bible says different.
I
am in no way attempting to minimize what Jesus did on the cross. It was
necessary and eternal justice demanded it. However, please don’t get your
current image of Jesus from the cross … Been
there – Done that! Get a new image of Jesus as KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF
LORDS.
·
The
first time He rode into Jerusalem on the young colt of a donkey.
o This time He is
coming on a great white horse.
·
The
first time He acted like a Lamb on its way to be slaughtered.
o This time He is
coming to slaughter all who oppose Him.
·
The
first time He “opened not His mouth.”
o This time He will
open His mouth and out will come a sharp two-edged sword.
·
The
first time He was like a sheep headed for the shearers.
o This time He will
strike the nations and rule them with a rod of iron.
·
The
first time He was meek and mild.
o This time His eyes
are like flames of fire.
·
The
first time He suffered alone.
o This time He will
have His armies with Him
·
The
first time He was beaten.
o This time He is
coming to make war and recompense vengeance on all those who are ungodly.
·
The
first time He died.
o This time every knee
will bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the Glory of God the
Father.
·
Next
time will be a lot different than the first time …
God
wants to make sure we have a right image of Jesus, our soon coming King!
