Over the next three or four weeks, I will be looking at different aspects of Jesus arrival into
Jerusalem, including the events around this, the prophecies, the pain and suffering, and we will look at the resurrection of our Lord.
REFERENCES:
Matthew 21-22, Mark
11-12, Luke 19-20, John 12
It was a springtime Sunday in about the year 30 A.D. The holy city of Jerusalem was crowded with
pilgrims who had come for the annual Passover celebration.
Jesus had spent many months traveling through the towns and villages of Palestine. He preached about the kingdom of God and healed the sick wherever He went. Now the time had come for Him to claim His title as the Messiah - the Savior that God had promised to the Jewish people.
Jesus knew His mission was almost finished. As they traveled to Jerusalem, Jesus warned His
disciples that He would soon be put to death, and after three days He would
rise again.
As they came near Jerusalem, Jesus told two of His disciples to go into a nearby village and bring a donkey that would be waiting there. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. Crowds
of people spread their coats on the ground in front of Him. Some waved branches
of palm trees, a sign of victory. The people shouted,
Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord —
the King of Israel!
Only a king would be greeted this way (2 Kings 9:13), and the people wanted
Jesus to be their king.
Most of the people did not understand what kind of king Jesus would be. They expected their Messiah to be a great political and military leader who would free them from the tyranny of the Roman Empire. But the kingdom of God is not of this world.
It is a spiritual kingdom that is now growing in the hearts of people who put their faith and trust in God.
Cleansing the temple
Jesus went to the temple
once He got into Jerusalem, and He didn't like what
He saw. This most holy of places had been turned into a marketplace. Merchants
were selling animals for temple sacrifices. Money changers were exchanging the
pilgrims' money for special coins used in the temple. Many of these people were
cheating the pilgrims who came to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem.
Jesus turned over the seats
of the merchants and the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins.
He told them all to leave. He made a whip of some cords and used it to drive
out the animals. He said,
It is written,
'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations', But you have made
it a den of robbers!
Jesus went to the temple
every day. Blind people, crippled people and sick people came to Him, and He
healed all of them. He told stories and parables to help people understand the kingdom of Godand God's love for all
people. The crowds of people who came to hear Him were spellbound.
A expert on the Jewish Law
asked Jesus which of God's commandments was most important. Jesus replied,
'Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the
first and greatest commandment. The second is just as important: 'Love your
neighbor as yourself.' All the other commandments and the teachings of the
prophets are based on these two.
Trust in God and Christian
love (kindness and respect) for all people are the basis for everything Jesus
taught us. These are the things that are really important in life.
Not everyone
was happy that Jesus was preaching at the temple every day. The chief priests
and elders of the temple were angry and upset. The chief priests had given
permission for merchants and money changers to use the outer courtyard of the
temple, but Jesus had driven them out. They were afraid of a crackdown by Roman
authorities because of the large crowds who followed Jesus. Worst of all, the
people were putting their hopes and trust in Jesus. The temple officials felt
their authority slipping away.
These temple officials came up with a plan to
trap Jesus with His own words. They came to Jesus and demanded to know by what
authority he was doing all these things. If Jesus said His authority was from
God, they would accuse Him of blasphemy. If He did not claim authority from
God, they could say He was just a crazy man.
But Jesus knew it was a trap. Instead of
answering the question, He asked them another question: "Did the baptism of John come from
heaven?" The temple officials
realized this was also a trap. If they said "Yes", Jesus would say,
"Then why didn't you believe him?" If they said "No" it
would make the people angry because they believed John the Baptist was a
prophet. So, they refused to answer.
As usual, Jesus had defeated his opponents at
their own game! But the temple officials were even more angry and began to plot
to have Jesus killed.
Lessons
For the Jews, Jerusalem was the holy City of God. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, He
fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy (Zechariah
9:9-10) and left little doubt that He was accepting the title of
Messiah. Jesus was adored by the crowds of people who had come to Jerusalem for Passover.
But there was harsh conflict between Jesus and Jerusalem's religious leaders.
They clashed on issues of prayer, holiness, life after death and paying taxes
to the Romans. Above all, they clashed on the issue of Jesus' authority from
God. These conflicts led to Jesus being crucified less than a week after
entering Jerusalem.
Jesus did some of His most important preaching
during this final week. He spoke of His second coming and told parables of the kingdom of God. Most of all He said we
must put our total trust in God and put that trust into action with kindness
for other people.
What is Palm
Sunday? Palm Sunday, the Sunday
before Easter, is a celebration of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Some churches decorate
with palms and distribute palm branches in memory of the greeting Jesus
received from the pilgrims as He rode into Jerusalem.
Why did Jesus preach and work His
miracles among the Jews? The people known as
Hebrews, Israelites or Jews were God's chosen people. It was God's plan to
bring salvation to the Jews first, then to the rest of the world through the
Jews. Jesus was born a Jew and remained faithful to Judaism (the Jewish
religion) throughout His earthly life. He worked and preached mainly among the
Jews of Palestine, which is now the country of Israel.
Christianity began as a small sect of Judaism.
It was only after many Gentiles (non-Jews) converted to Christianity that it
emerged as a separate religion. God has not revoked His covenant with the Jews (Romans11:25-29), but His salvation is now available to all
people of the world.
What does Messiah mean? Messiah comes from a Hebrew word
meaning "the anointed one." In Old Testament times, important people
like kings and priests were anointed with oil as a sign of their office. For
hundreds of years, the Jews had expected God to send them a special king (Daniel 9:25-26,Isaiah
7:14-17,11:1-9, Micah
5:2).
Jesus avoided accepting the title Messiah until the very end because the people
were expecting their Messiah to be a military and political leader instead of a
spiritual leader. In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, christos means "anointed one", and
that is where the word "Christ" comes from.
Jesus came to Earth as a baby
born of a Virgin as the prophecies were foretold. Jesus was and is the Son of
the Living God. He grew up and through his Ministry, did many miracles showing
He was God. He healed the sick, made the lame walk, raised the dead, calmed the
seas, but his face was turned to Jerusalem where he would be rejected as the Messiah and put to
a cross to die for humanity.
The message is Jesus died on
the cross taking the sins of all humanity upon himself so we would not have to
pay the price for our sins in Hell.
Jesus paid our sin debt with
his life and we will see in our next Chaplain’s Corner, that Easter Morning
when Jesus raised from the dead proving He was God.
If Jesus never rose, you
would still be in your sins. The message is that we are all sinners and that
death is the judgment for sin. Christ offers Eternal Life to all who will call
upon his name.
If you were to die today, DO
YOU KNOW 100% FOR SURE YOU WOULD GO TO HEAVEN?
If your not one 100% sure,
Ask Jesus to forgive your sins. The Bible calls all men to repent and to turn
to Jesus Christ
John 3:16 says For God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that Who so ever believes in
him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
MAKE SURE TODAY THAT YOU WILL
GO TO HEAVEN
Regarding the location of the Sinner's Prayer in the Bible? Well, there isn't one mentioned; it is only implied. The basis of the Sinner's Prayer comes from Romans 10:9-10. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.
You said in Your Holy Word, Romans 10:9 that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.
Right now I confess Jesus as the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.
Thank you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. I thank you Jesus that your grace never leads to license, but rather it always leads to repentance. Therefore Lord Jesus transform my life so that I may bring glory and honor to you alone and not to myself.
Thank you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life.
Amen.
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