Eight Days that Changed the World – Palm Sunday
I’d like to read with you in Mark chapter 11, Mark chapter 11, and verse, 7, Mark 11, and verse 7. And they brought the colt to Jesus and cast their garments on him and he sat upon him and many spread their garments in the way and others cut down branches off the trees and strawed them in the way, and they that went before and they that followed cried saying Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem and into the temple. And when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve. Now, Luke records some other details to this event. So if you’ll turn, please, to Luke chapter 19 for our final reading. Luke chapter 19.
And we’ll look at verse 37, Luke chapter 19 and verse 37. And when he was come nigh even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed be the King, that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
So I’m sure we are all aware that this is called Palm Sunday because of the palms that were laid in the path of the Lord Jesus as he entered into the city. It is no exaggeration to speak about this period as eight days that changed the world. This was and is the most important week in the history of the world because it is the most important week in the history of the greatest person who ever lived, the Lord Jesus. We’re going to be looking then at just what happened. At Christmas, we reflect on his coming into the world, his advent, and the fact that he became one of us, and rightly so, to think about the wonder of his birth and of his life coming. But that birth, that coming, was with a view to what we’re looking at this week. And so now we’re going to be looking at the purpose for his coming was to go to the cross. And this is the first step. This week leads to that purpose. This is the first step in the movements that are going to take him to Calvary, where he will die, that men and women might be saved. Now, you will notice that although the Lord Jesus had visited Jerusalem previously, apparently he had always done so on foot. This visit was different. He did not walk into Jerusalem. He rode on a colt.
It was fulfilling a prophecy 500 years before by a prophet named Zacharias. I’ll read you his words. He said, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon a colt. The people themselves unknowingly fulfilled exactly what Zachariah prophesied. The Lord Jesus comes on a colt. He is combining meekness and majesty. He enters the capital city. It is a triumphal entry. It was his last appeal to Jerusalem to receive him and to recognize him as its rightful king. So there are two elements to this wonderful prophecy that were fulfilled, fulfilled as far as how he would come and then what they would say. And those two things happen just as God said they would. Now we’re confronted with a number of topics that we could look at, but I wanna respect your time. And we’re just gonna take one, but there are four major ones that seem to appeal to me. Let me just mention them to you.
There’s first of all, the years that the prophet Daniel decreed would lead to this event. Then there were the tears that the Savior shed over the city as we read together from Luke chapter 19. Then there were the cheers of the multitude, what they said when he arrived and what they were thinking. And then finally, the fears the leaders felt when they saw the welcome that Christ was receiving. This rankled them that he was not telling them to be quiet. So allow me to just hurry over the three of them and then we’ll just focus on one for this meeting tonight.
Hundreds of years before this event, the prophet Daniel gave one of the most amazing prophecies in our Bible. It is, as far as I know, the only prophecy that has a date given. The actual time involved is stated in the prophecy. Many Bible scholars have shown that Daniel’s prophecy pointed to the very time, when the Lord Jesus would present himself to the people by riding into Jerusalem. To state it briefly, Daniel was told by the angel that from a moment that an edict would be issued to rebuild Jerusalem, 483 years later, the Messiah would come. That’s exactly what I have read to you here. Amazingly, the time between that decree, that is between March the 14th, 445 BC, and the April day when the Lord Jesus entered into Jerusalem is not only 483 years, but is exactly as Daniel’s prophecy indicated, 173,880 days after what the prophecy said was the starting point.
173,880 days later, the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem. It’s called Palm Sunday, not palm monday, not palm friday or saturday it had to be this day and please understand that there’s not another person in the history of the world who could fulfill this prophecy, on this day just the lord jesus christ the cheers of the multitude.
Mark records that as the Savior approached the city, the multitudes went before and those that followed cried, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Now we’ve heard a lot about Hosanna today and the cry of Hosanna, as we have already been reminded, literally means save now or, oh, save us now. It may be that the salvation that they were thinking of was a salvation from Roman rule and to be set free. And sometimes, I’m not gonna say this is what is in the mind of my audience, but sometimes when people think about the gospel and about knowing Christ and they hear the Christian word saved, what they’re thinking is, I would like to be saved from my problems. I would like to be saved from this illness that is bothering me. I would like to be saved from this financial difficulty. But what the Bible is presenting is salvation from sin, salvation for eternity, salvation to deliver a person from going down into hell and allow that person to live forever with God in his home. And this is the salvation the Lord Jesus came to give. When the crowd uttered this cry.
The multitude saying, Hosanna, save us now, the King has come. The leaders of the people felt great fear. Now, a short time before this triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus had raised from the dead a man named Lazarus. A lot of people had witnessed that miracle. And it had convinced the Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin as it’s called, it convinced the Jewish leaders that they had to do away with this Messiah, with the Lord Jesus because they feared an uprising. They feared that Rome, what they said, would take away our place. We would no longer be the bosses here and they would take away our nation. And so they decided that what they would do would be to get rid of the Lord Jesus. Now, before I leave all those points, could I just point out something to you? There were times in the life of the Lord Jesus where he did something that left the people awestruck and they were convinced he was the Messiah and they wanted to crown him. John chapter six, they wanted to announce he was the king. Every other time, the Lord Jesus turned away from them.
When he would heal people, he would often say something like this, tell no one. His own physical brothers said to him, nobody does what you’re doing and doesn’t want to be heard and known. Go up to Jerusalem and let people see what you’re doing. Time and time again, the Lord Jesus, refused their accolades, refused the crown they wanted to give him, but not this day. This was one day different because this was the day and he knew it was the day that Daniel had prophesied, the day that Zachariah had spoken, the day that the king was to come. And so unlike any other time when he had gone into Jerusalem, this time he presented himself as the king. But I have read to you about his tears.
And that’s what I want to focus on tonight, because I want you to think about the Lord Jesus and how much he loves you and the compassion that he felt. We’re watching his love for this city that is going to murder him. And it reminds me of the steadfast love of the Lord Jesus for sinners, for you tonight, whoever you are, irrespective of how you have treated him in the past or whatever your sins may be, the Lord Jesus cares for your eternal well-being. Sometimes people imagine that in order to approach God, what we need to do is we need to go through people who once were down here like us, and they’re saints, and they’re up there, and so we can appeal to them. Peter, John, Mary, the Lord’s mother, we can go to them because they really care for us, and then they can speak to God or they can speak to the Lord Jesus. Now, if you don’t remember anything else from the meeting tonight, would you please tuck this away in the ROM part of your brain where it stays permanently? Nobody is more concerned about your happiness and eternal wellbeing than is God and his son. If God had his way, you’d go home tonight from this meeting saved. You go home tonight knowing that you have eternal life. That’s what God wishes. But notice these tears. They were not tears of self-pity.
The Lord Jesus had left heaven to save these people. And he came knowing that they would reject him. But he doesn’t cry as though he’s crying for himself, all I’ve done and all I’ve tried, and yet they’re rejecting me. These are not tears of self-pity. Notice, please, there were not tears of anger and frustration at the people’s blindness and their eventual condemnation of him, despite all he had sacrificed.
Sometimes a Christian can feel anger. He’s trying to help somebody, trying to present the gospel to them. And I can remember times when I have been roundly cursed in language that I would never repeat on a platform or off a platform. And sometimes you feel a bit of anger inside. The Lord Jesus never felt that. He’s not crying tears of anger and frustration that the people would not receive him. These were tears of sorrow and compassion as he thought about the awful destruction that lay ahead for this people and the city that he loved. So we’re going to look then at the Savior and the city and think about a compassionate Savior. This is a passage where we see him weeping. There is a Greek word, as you know, the New Testament was written in Greek. There is a Greek word for compassion that occurs 14 times in the New Testament, that is from Matthew to Revelation. And every time it is used either about the Lord Jesus or by the Lord Jesus in a parable where he’s speaking of himself. It’s as though the spirit of God set this word aside and said, this word will only be used for the son of God, compassion. Do you ever feel compassion?
Have you ever felt compassion? You break the word down and you see come is with and passion is feeling. So compassion is to feel with other people what they’re going through. And sometimes our compassion is based on the fact that whether we’re thinking of it actually or it’s just subconsciously, we realize that could be me.
My child could have died. My spouse could have died. I could be facing cancer. That could be me. And so we feel compassion. The compassion the Lord Jesus felt was not because he ever was or ever could be in the same position of us as sinners. The compassion the Lord Jesus felt was because that’s who he is. That’s his heart. That’s his concern for us. Dr. Parks mentioned to me a friend of mine who visited Israel. He said he was amazed when he got there, actually. He was amazed to see the distances that the Lord Jesus crossed to reach one soul. You see, the world thinks in huge numbers. And I really don’t know the names of everyone in the building tonight.
But the Lord Jesus does. And he has a personal, individual interest in everybody that’s here tonight. He personally wants you to be saved. He personally, individually wants your soul to be delivered from sin. And so compassion. There are times in his life, again and again, where we see that. I just want to very quickly go over some with you so you’ll understand what I’m trying to convey to you about the Savior and his love for you. There was a time when he looked out over the multitude and he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. Now, sheep without a shepherd are in great need and in great danger. And it says that when the Lord Jesus saw them, he had compassion. He had compassion. Being likened to sheep is not a very complimentary thing because sheep are easily led astray and they are quickly lost. I’ve tried to compile some stories of dogs that found their way home. It still amazes me that some of them have crossed hundreds of miles, hundreds of miles and come back to the house where they were lost from, sometimes lost in a car while they were driving and not even lost from the home. And yet a dog can find his way back. But God says that we are like sheep who have gone astray.
And he says, all we like sheep have gone astray. There’s something global about this. No one could come into the meeting tonight that this doesn’t fit because the Bible says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We are all like wandering sheep who have strayed away from the one who loves us, from the one who can protect us, and from the one who can meet our deepest need. Do you remember in the Old Testament, David was a shepherd. There were times when he had to rescue a sheep from a lion or from a bear He was a shepherd and he cared for his sheep.
But in the Bible’s most famous Old Testament chapter, [David] says, I have a shepherd. I have a shepherd who cares for me. I have a shepherd who protects me. I have a shepherd who meets my needs. And he says, it is the Lord who is my shepherd. Every one of us are like helpless sheep when it comes to death, when it comes to eternity, when it comes to our sin. But there was a shepherd who calls himself the good shepherd. And in John chapter 10, where he takes that title, I am the good shepherd. He says, the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. So at Calvary, the Lord Jesus, the good shepherd died. He gave his life so that you could have life. And then in the rest of the chapter, he says, and I give my sheep eternal life. So at Calvary, he gave himself. And then those who trust him, to them he gives everlasting life, eternal life. But you notice that the statement of Isaiah goes on to say, we have turned everyone to his own way. Now, there’s something very personal about that because we don’t all sin the same way.
My sins may be completely different from your sins. And so it’s pointless for me to think I don’t do what you do. So therefore I’m better because each of us is lost. Each of us has turned to our own way. Each of us needs this shepherd. Each of us has gone astray from God. The good shepherd has come to give his life. In another passage, the Lord Jesus presents himself as a great physician. And we hear of times when he saw a man who was dying with the disease of leprosy and he had compassion on him and he healed him. Other times he saw a man afflicted with demonic power that had taken control of his life and the Lord Jesus had compassion on him. And he has compassion for sinners. He wants to save you tonight. He wants to deliver you from your sins. This is the reason. We’re tracing tonight his journey into the city of Jerusalem. But the reason why he journeyed from heaven down here to go to a cross was because of your deep need and his compassion for you. I sometimes thought, suppose he wasn’t interested in coming.
What would you and I have done? Do you think any of us could have suggested to God, would you please send your son to die so that I could live? I think we should be very thankful that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that sin is a disease. I am saying that God often talks about diseases to help us understand what sin does inside of us, our spiritual life. I’m glad that the COVID days are in the past. I hope they never return. But in August of 2020, there was an article that told about a bizarre result of COVID-19. That coronavirus pandemic caused a boom, For plastic surgeons.
One plastic surgeon suggested two reasons, One was guesswork He guessed that with people having so much spare time on their hands That if they could, they were allowed to go to a medical office and have work done on them that they had the time to do it. But the other is based on fact, because this is what people told one of the plastic surgeons and a number of people agreed. Zoom meetings. Zoom meetings.
People were having Zoom meetings for work, for business, for other reasons. And they didn’t like how they looked. They didn’t like what they were seeing. And so it drove them to the doctor because they didn’t like the way they looked. If you come to this book and you listen to what God says about your sins and my sins, This book will drive you to the Lord Jesus. It will drive you to the great physician because you’ll come to understand that you need desperately, urgently to be delivered from your sins. That is the Savior’s compassion for sinners. He had compassion on a young man, as I said, that was held by Satan’s power. He had compassion in many other instances, but I just want to focus finally on what he said in Luke chapter 10. It is arguably the Savior’s most famous parable. We call it the parable of the Good Samaritan. And the Lord Jesus is speaking about himself. And he speaks about a hated man who goes out of his way, to rescue somebody who hated him.
And to save his life. And the way he expresses it is that the Samaritan, as he journeyed, saw that beaten, dying man by the side of the road, and he had compassion on him. And he went to him, and he cared for his wounds, and he picked him up, and he brought him to a hotel, and he sat with him, nursing him back to health, paying for his future care, all this for somebody that hated him. Charles Spurgeon, a great gospel preacher of a previous century, said, imagine if you had a neighbor who hated you. Imagine this neighbor threw things at your children, often tried to hurt you or your house, cursed you in public, made your life miserable. And imagine you come home from work one day and you happen to see smoke and fire. And when you come around there, you see it’s not your home. It’s the home of this neighbor who hates you.
Mr. Spurgeon said, if you saw him, this man who hated you, if you saw him at the third floor window with the flames behind him. And you thought to yourself, I need to save that man. And as you started to head into the house, the man looked down at you and cursed you and told you to go away and leave him alone. And then when you got up to the third floor to rescue him, he fought off all of your attempts to save him.
How would you feel? Because there’s somebody that you may be treating just like that. Somebody who knows that you are in grave, eternal danger. And he came all the way from heaven because of compassion. And he came to save you. And sometimes we fight against him and we try to keep him at arm’s length and we want nothing to do with him. And all the time, he’s trying to save you from your sins and save you so that you can be in heaven forever with him. The savior marked by compassion. It was the very well-known preacher, David Jeremiah, who said this.
Our problem isn’t political and it can’t be solved by political means. It is not legal and all the laws in the world can’t solve it. It’s not educational. If everyone had a doctorate, we’d still have a corrupted culture. It’s not financial. If everyone were a millionaire, we’d still be in trouble. It’s not enough to turn over a new leaf, pass a new law, elect a new president, or create a new slogan. Our problem is our heart. We are sinners. And what we need spiritually is a new heart, or as the Lord Jesus so memorably put it, you must be born again. You need to have this moment in your life where you trust Christ and you receive eternal life. And apart from that, the Lord Jesus said, except the person is born again, and he cannot see the kingdom of God. This is not something new. The new birth is not something invented by televangelists or people preaching on radio. The new birth is what the Lord Jesus spoke about.
This is the month of March. Not all that long ago, people were celebrating the life of St. Patrick. Allow me to give you a statement from the Confessions of St. Patrick. This is what he wrote. I am greatly a debtor to God who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me that multitudes were born again to God through my preaching. The Irish, who had never had the knowledge of God and worshipped only idols, have lately become the people of the Lord and are called sons of God. He was seeing people born again. Do you have just one birthday?
I only know one person who has three birthdays. She’s in heaven now. Queen Elizabeth had an actual day when she was born. She had a public birthday that was celebrated by her nation. And she had a second birth when she trusted Christ. Most people have one birth. Everybody who’s going to be in heaven has two. How many birthdays do you have? See, I could tell you the day that I was born.
And I can tell you the day that I was born again. And if I didn’t have that second birthday, I’d curse forever that first birthday because I would have missed heaven forever. So please understand the compassion of the Savior. He not only wept, but he wished that they knew the time of opportunity. They were ignoring or refusing this wonderful visitation. And so we see his heart wish for the salvation of these people who were turning against him. This is in the New Testament and it is in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God said, I have no pleasure in the death of a person who’s not ready to meet me. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I take pleasure when a wicked turns from his way and he lives. And then God says, turn, why will you die? Because God wanted people to be saved. In the New Testament, we’re reminded, God desires all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. This is what God wants for you. And when I see the Savior looking over that city and weeping over that city, it is because what he longed for them, he saw what was coming, and what he longed for them was their salvation. When Paul wrote to the Christians in what we have in 1 Timothy chapter 2, he told them to pray for kings and for everybody in authority.
And he based it on this fact. God desires all to be saved. So pray for kings and for all that are in authority because God desires all to be saved. And as has so often been pointed out, the person who was the king or in authority, was the wicked, vile, violent man, Nero. And yet Paul says to the Christians, pray for him because God wants all to be saved. And then further on, he uses the word and he says, to make that possible, the Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom for all on behalf of everybody. And then he says, God has sent me out to preach to all, to preach to the nations, not just to the people of Israel, but to preach to the nations because God desires all to be saved. So please, will you understand me when I tell you, nobody loves you more or cares more deeply for your eternal wellbeing and welfare, than the person who left heaven to die on a cross because he loved you and had compassion on your soul. But of course, the Lord Jesus in weeping over this city now reminds us of a condemned city.
What a privilege it is, what a privilege it is to have salvation offered. And he had offered salvation to this people. Do you remember the city of Capernaum where he had preached? He said it was exalted in privilege, but tragically they were turning away from him. Now we live in a country that has been greatly privileged by God, greatly privileged. Gospel, work, the Bible, the fact that Christianity is so common in our country, the country has been greatly privileged.
Midland Park has been greatly privileged. There’s a place where week by week, the message of salvation is proclaimed. You have been greatly privileged in your life. You’re here, you’re alive. God has spared you, allowing you to hear his word and understand what he wants for you is salvation. Now that city was turning away from its privilege. They were letting it slip right by. What are you doing with this blessing from God that you are alive here tonight hearing a message that tells you that God wants you to be saved? And yet the Lord Jesus had to mourn that they did not know the time of their visitation. They didn’t understand Daniel’s prophecy.
They didn’t know what was happening that day. He said, if you had known, notice what he says, if you had known even you in this your day, this was it. Daniel had told what the Messiah was gonna do when he came. He gave a list of six things, how their sins would be dealt with and put away. This was the day if they had just received him. But they didn’t know the time of their visitation. He was willing to save them. They were unwilling to be saved.
And I don’t know how much of their history you know, but in less than 40 years, what the Lord Jesus said took place. Four Roman legions under Vespasian’s son Titus, surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and basically leveled the temple and much of the city. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of Jews were murdered. They say that almost every tree surrounding the city of Jerusalem turned into a cross as they were crucified by the Romans who were fed up with their rebellion against the Roman government. And the Lord Jesus saw that coming and longed that instead they would have turned to him and trusted him. Do you know what he said? Like a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings to protect them. I would have protected you. I would have gathered you. I would have saved you. And then he adds these terrible words, but you would not. See, I would have, he said, but you would not. So here’s a city that the Lord Jesus wanted to save, but they didn’t want him to save them.
There’s a Savior tonight who wants to save you, here, right now, to save you. Is it possible that there’s somebody here who doesn’t want to be saved and is allowing the opportunity to pass by? Here is what the Savior is saying, because He is offering you eternal life based on the sacrifice of His life at Calvary. And He says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word and believes God that sent me.
Has everlasting life. That’s the new birth. Has everlasting life. Shall not come into condemnation, not come into judgment, but is passed from death, to life. You are being offered the greatest blessing that a human being can ever have. Here tonight, the Lord Jesus is offering you eternal life. He is offering to bring you from a position of death to life, and he is offering to assure you that you will never be brought into judgment before God. He’s the only one who can promise that because he’s the judge. And he’s offering to settle things right now tonight so that you will be saved for eternity. Thank you for listening. But what we really hope is that when you think about the Lord Jesus coming into that city of Jerusalem, you will remember, that he is the Savior with compassion and love for guilty, perishing sinners, and he wants to save you tonight. Shall we pray?
Filed under: Gospel Series, higgins-eugene
