Palm Sunday- notes on the sermon 4-14-19… Luke 19:28-40
The people expected Messiah to come and reign as King,
breaking the yoke of the Roman Empire.
How did the people know to expect Messiah on that particular
day? Was it foretold?
Some believe so-this is from a blog, “Kevin’s Blog” but I
have heard the same number elsewhere:
“So, from Daniel 9:25, we are told it will be 69×7 years until the
Messiah comes as Prince. For the Jews and Babylonians, the year was
360 days long. So, this gives us 69x7x360=173,880 days.
The start of the prophecy is the command to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem,
which we are told about in Nehemiah 2:1-8. This occurred in most
likely 444 BC, in the month of Nisan. The 1 of Nisan in 444 BC
corresponds to March 5th, 444 BC. 173880 / 365.24219879
= 476.067662981 = 476 years, 25 days. This would put with date for the
end of Daniel’s prophecy when the Messiah would present himself as King as
March 30, 33 AD. Passover in 33 AD was on April 3rd.”
Humanly speaking, it is easy to set a number of days-just
backtrack from the date and find a number that works for you.
But God is precise, and we needn’t argue about equations, as
we take on Faith that Jesus is the Messiah and whatever He did was done
perfectly, right on time.
The point was made that the owners (Lords of the donkey) in
either Bethphage or Bethany were willing to give their donkey once they knew
that “The Lord has need of it.”
This willingness was worship and honor for/of the
Lord who was Messiah.
Note that the devil had bedeviled the plans of God all
through History, to no avail. Whether killing the male Hebrew slave babies in
Egypt or wiping out a generation of male babies from the time of Christ’s
birth, Satan had schemed and done his worst, but his worst was no match for
God’s plan of Salvation.
That foal of a donkey was going to be there just where God
wanted it to be. And those Lords of the donkey would and did honor Messiah just
as God had planned.
Those people who honored Christ as He entered Jerusalem knew
their Bible-seeing Him riding the foal of a donkey, they would have remembered
Zechariah 9:9
“9 Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph,
O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to
you; He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
They may even have realized that their very shouting of “Blessed is the King who comes in the name
of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
was, in fact, on their lips as a
fulfillment of prophesy. Luke 19:38
Instead of seeing Messiah take Herod’s Throne and defeat the
Roman empire, they saw Jesus arrested and found guilty of blasphemy by the
Sanhedrin:
“66When it was
day, the Council of elders of the people assembled, both chief priests and
scribes, and they led Him away to their council chamber,
saying,
67“If You are the Christ, tell us.” But He said to them, “If I
tell you, you will not believe;
68and if I ask a question, you will not answer.
69“But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right
hand of the power of God.”
70And they all said, “Are You the Son of God, then?” And He said to
them, “Yes, I am.”
71Then they said, “What further need do we have of testimony? For we
have heard it ourselves from His own mouth.” Luke 22:66-71
How bitter it must have been for the peoples who had so
hoped in Jesus as the Christ, to see Him denounced by their leaders and
punished by the very Roman legions they had expected Him to conquer.
Their abuse of Christ found in Luke 23:18-25 may have been
from the heart, from their very being. He had raised their hopes and
expectations to the point of joyous celebration, but now they felt betrayed, fooled
by someone who, in their eyes, turned out to be just a man.
They may have thought, “What Messiah allows Himself to be
arrested, tortured and crucified?”
We have the answer in His Word, and His Spirit testifies to
the truth that:
“6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the
preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light
of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the
end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6
20He who
testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus.
21The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. Revelation
22:20-21
