If you would please open your Bible to John's Gospel, chapter 12. Last Sunday we returned to our series in the Gospel of John. And just to remind you that Jesus and his disciples have come to the village of Bethany, to the east of Jerusalem. They came there, arrived six days before the Passover. And so after then the Jewish Sabbath, Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This is the original Palm Sunday. So follow along as I read John 12, 12 through 19. On the next day, much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed is the king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not his disciples at first, But when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from the dead, bear record. For this cause the people also met him, for that they had heard that he had done this miracle. The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for this gospel record of this very significant event. We thank you for the accuracy of it, that we can trust every word that we read in our Bibles to be inspired scripture, your Holy Spirit directing the human writer to record these words for our edification today. And so Lord, I pray that we would take a fresh look at this passage, at this event, that we would marvel, and that we would indeed recognize Jesus as our Messiah King. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So this is indeed the original Palm Sunday that we're studying about this morning. On the first day of the Passion Week, as we call it, Jesus made his grand entrance into the city of Jerusalem. We call it the triumphal entry. This, of course, is the Sunday right before Resurrection Sunday, right before our Easter. And so it is every year we commemorate this on Palm Sunday. This is indeed a significant event. It's one that is recorded in all four of our New Testament Gospels. Now, we've been studying through John, and I've mentioned throughout that very much of the material that's in John, perhaps as much as 90% of the material in John's Gospel, is unique to John's Gospel. But this passage is not unique. All four of the Gospel writers write about it. Each account adds certain highlights or details Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for example, explain how Jesus sent two of his disciples over to find this donkey's colt and to fetch that animal so that Jesus could ride upon it, but John doesn't find it necessary to include these details. John seems more concerned about how Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy. And John also shows more interest in how various groups that are in this account react and respond to Jesus' coming. So this is a significant event. It's also a pivotal event. If you remember prior to this, Jesus and his disciples had avoided Jerusalem. In fact, they pretty much avoided the whole region of Judea because Jesus had a death threat on him. And so they were safely ministering away in a town of Ephraim in the Judean wilderness, but that's changed now. Jesus is now making a triumphal entry and he's making a public appearance. This is about as public as it gets. J.C. Ryle says this, this time, the time had come at last, when Christ was to die for the sins of the world, the time had come when the true Passover lamb was to be slain, when the true blood of the atonement was to be shed, when Messiah was to be cut off according to prophecy, when the way into the holiest was to be opened by the true high priest to all mankind. Knowing all this, he writes, Our Lord purposefully drew attention to himself. He placed himself prominently under the notice of the whole Jewish nation. It was only meet and right that this thing should not be done in a corner." And so it is that this is a pivotal event. Jesus is now making a very public appearance and he knows how things are going to unfold. And so it is that Jesus makes his triumphal entry and all the people shout. So let all the people shout, Hosanna. Jesus is the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. I'd like to approach John's record of this event by leveraging John's emphasis on the various people that are in this particular drama. So let's begin, of course, with Jesus himself, the humble King, the humble King Jesus. Jesus is obviously the central figure in this drama. He's the protagonist. He does not come into Jerusalem, though, riding on a war horse, does he? He comes to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Now John simply records that Jesus found a young donkey to sit upon. We have the other gospel accounts to fill in those details for us, as I mentioned earlier. And so it is that Jesus, from Bethany, heads toward Jerusalem. He comes to the Mount of Olives. He dispatches two of his disciples to go into an adjacent village. We believe that to be the village of Bethphage. And he He told them ahead of time that they would find the colt of a donkey tied there. And they were to take that donkey, and if anyone asked any questions, they were to tell that person that the Lord has need of it. And all of this unfolded exactly as the Lord predicted that it would. And so they brought this colt of a donkey, and Jesus, King Jesus, came riding on a young donkey. And we're told in this account this was to fulfill what was written. Look again at verse 15, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold thy king cometh sitting on an ass's colt. That's what was written. The question is, where was this written? Well, if you were here for our summer series in the book of Zechariah, you would know the answer. It was written in the book of Zechariah by the prophet Zechariah. And it was written some 500 years before the fulfillment of that prophecy. Zechariah 9.9 says, 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 an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. To again quote from J.C. Riley, he says, Here is a prediction of Zechariah, literally and exactly fulfilled. Our Lord, he says, was not merely a very humble person, as some spiritualizing interpreters would have explained Zechariah's words to mean, but he literally rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Above all, he says, such fulfillments teach us that what we may expect in looking forward to the second advent of Jesus Christ. They show us that we must look for a literal accomplishment of the prophecies concerning the second coming and not for a figurative and a spiritual one. Forever let us hold fast this great principle. Happy is that Bible reader who believes the words of the Bible to mean exactly what they seem to mean." Are you that kind of person? Do you believe the words of the Bible to mean exactly what they seem to mean? All those words of prophecy in the Old Testament, do you take them as being literally fulfilled in the passage of time? Do you believe these things? I hope you do, you should. And so Jesus exactly fulfilled Zachariah's prophecy and he chose a donkey rather than a horse because a donkey is a symbol of humility and peace, whereas the horse is a symbol of war and conquest. And so on this occasion, Jesus came riding on a donkey to indicate that he is the king of peace. He comes as a king bringing peace. But we know, we know the prophecies concerning Jesus' second coming indicate that the second time he will return to earth as a warrior king riding on a white horse. We see that Jesus is the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. We focused our attention on the humble King Jesus. Now let us shift our attention to the adoring crowds. There are actually at least a couple groups of people that are mentioned in this passage that merge together into this one large crowd of admirers. And so let's begin with the people from the graveside of Lazarus, verses 17 and 18. It says in verse 17, the people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave and raised him from the dead bear record. Now just a reminder that this Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha. This man lived in the village of Bethany that Jesus had just been staying in. This man contracted a terminal illness and he died. And his body was placed in a tomb where it remained for four days. And then Jesus came. And when he arrived in Bethany, the crowd of mourners led Jesus to the tomb. And Jesus stood there at that tomb. He said, remove the stone. And then he cried out with a loud and commanding voice, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus came forth. A man who had been dead for four days came walking out of that tomb. Jesus had raised him from the dead, had restored his life, restored his health. And so there were those witnesses who were there. There were those who were there at the graveside who witnessed this phenomenal miracle. And what's indicated here is they continued to bear record. The verb tense indicates they kept on telling people. I mean, wouldn't you? If you had been a witness of such a great miracle, would you not tell people your whole life what you had seen? And so they were bearing testimony of a great miracle that they witnessed with their own eyes. And on account of their testimony, we see that people from Jerusalem and those who were coming to this great festival, the Passover, heard their testimony and joined in then. And so this became a very large crowd Verse 18 says, For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. They probably reasoned that if Jesus could perform such an amazing miracle as raising a dead man and giving him life, that this Jesus must be the Messiah that they're looking for, this great deliverer that they're hoping for. Here's the problem. The crowds were expecting a warrior king, a conquering messiah, someone who would come and fulfill their nationalistic dreams, someone who would deliver them from the bondage that they're under, under the Roman Empire, to give them deliverance, to be a powerful military and political leader who would set them free. That's the kind of messiah that they were looking for. Jesus' very manner of coming should have been a clue to them that all of their expectations were misplaced. They were misguided. Jesus came not as a warrior king, not the first time. No, he came as a king of peace. Now given that this was the week of Passover festival, this must have been a very, very large crowd. Some have estimated that it may have exceeded a million people, if you can imagine that. Very large crowd. And imagine a crowd of that size with all the excitement that they had of believing that their Messiah deliverer was now coming into Jerusalem. I mean, their expectation was he's gonna come in, he's gonna clear out the Romans, and he's going to restore the Jewish nation to its former prominence. And so with great excitement, They streamed out of the city of Jerusalem, they came out and made their way across the valley to the Mount of Olives to welcome Jesus. And we're told in verse 13, they took branches of palm trees, they went forth to meet Him and cried, Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. What I find that's interesting here is you compare the different gospel accounts. You note how certain gospel writers will include certain details that were not mentioned by the other gospel writers. So thank the Lord that we have four gospel accounts and we can accumulate all of those details. John is the only gospel writer to mention the palm branches. Did you know that? Now these are probably branches of the date palm that grew in abundance there on the Mount of Olives. And from at least the time of the Maccabees in the second century BC, the palm branch had become a symbol for the Jewish nation. The palm branch was even on coins that were struck by the Jews during their uprising against the Romans. And so this was kind of a symbol of nationalism for the Jewish nation. And so the palms may have symbolized their nationalistic hopes that their Messiah liberator had come in the person of Jesus. Now, notice their enthusiastic cry here. It begins with that word, Hosanna. It's an Aramaic word. It originally meant, save now. But by the time that they were shouting that word, it'd become kind of a more of a general expression of excitement, kind of like, you know, if you go to some big sporting event or something like that and you would shout, hurrah, you know, or maybe you might think of all hail, you know, something like that, hail the victor. That's kind of the idea behind this shout. And then we see this phrase, blessed is the King of Israel that cometh. Now this is a remarkable phrase, a remarkable expression by these people for two reasons. Number one, they're declaring Jesus as king. This was an overt expression of their nationalism. And you need to realize that at that very time, Herod Antipas was the Roman king. He was the king reigning over this region. So they're declaring Jesus as king. And this is very significant when you view this in terms of what we've studied earlier in John's gospel. You know that there was an occasion where early in Jesus' ministry, the people, the crowds, wanted to make him their king by force. Remember that? And Jesus would not allow it. But on this occasion, They're declaring him to be king of Israel, and he's not saying a word against it. He's accepting it because he is king. And this statement is remarkable also because they say, blessed is he who comes, making reference to the coming one. This is a messianic term. The Jewish people understood that there was one who was to come, the Messiah. And so this is a messianic reference here. The saying itself comes from Psalm 118. It was read this morning for the scripture reading. Allow me to just reread a few of those verses. Psalm 118, verse 22. The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. So who's that talking about? talking about Jesus being the chief cornerstone. It goes on, this is the day which the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. And then, save now, that's the Aramaic hosanna that they shout. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. And so they are making a connection to these messianic terms from the Jewish scriptures. Psalms 113 through 118 as a group were called the Halal. These were psalms that would be sung by the Jewish people during the Passover season. And so these words were fresh in their minds as they spoke them. And so we have the crowds just admiring the Lord Jesus upon his coming. But sadly this crowd was fickle. Their accolades were short-lived. We know that many in the crowds who shouted these things on this day, who shouted Hosanna to the king, would later that very same week shout, crucify him, crucify him. So we focused on the humble King Jesus. We've looked at the adoring crowd. Who else does John include? Well, we have in verse 16, the clueless disciples. John reports that Jesus' disciples did not understand these things at first. They weren't making all the connections. They apparently missed the connections to the Messianic prophecies. They missed that. Nor did they understand, at that time, the true nature of Jesus' kingdom. Yes, he is king, not only of Israel, but he is king of kings and Lord of lords. But Jesus himself said in his first coming, my kingdom is not of this world, not of this earth. It's a heavenly kingdom. It's a global kingdom. It's a kingdom that spans the universe. And yes, the day will come when Jesus will return to this earth and he will establish his kingdom on this earth. We've studied about that many times. But his kingdom is more than what the first century Jews were expecting. That's the point. Sadly, the disciples' ignorance on this occasion was part of kind of a long-running pattern of ignorance. I mean, on many other occasions, the disciples just were slow to catch on if they ever caught on at all. They had even missed the fact that Jesus would be soon going to the cross. It's almost like they denied that to the very end. So they did not understand then, but John says they did understand later, after Jesus was glorified. Then they understood. What does this mean, after Jesus was glorified? Well, it at least refers to his death, burial, and resurrection. That's kind of all part of a package of his glorification. It may also be referring to after his ascension, when he sat down at the right hand of God. So later, when Jesus was glorified, they understood and they made the connection between the events of that day and the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, in the Jewish scriptures. They made those connections. They understood that the scriptures were fulfilled in Jesus, that He is the promised Messiah. Jesus is the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. We've looked at the humble King Jesus. We've looked at the adoring crowds, the clueless disciples. Who's left? Have we missed anybody? Yes, we have. Because we see in verse 19 the frustrated Pharisees. Look at what that verse says. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him. I mean, just picture these poor Pharisees. They couldn't believe their eyes. They couldn't believe this spectacle that was unfolding right before their very eyes. I mean, the very one that they wanted dead, the very one that they hated so much was being adored by all of the crowds. They just couldn't stand it. It really got under their skin. We see in verse 19 their angst toward one another. Their growing frustration in all this caused them to kind of turn on one another, to attack one another, and to paraphrase what they say here, they're casting blame, they say, take a look, you all have accomplished nothing. Now it may be that some of the more radical Pharisees were pushing for more drastic actions, and more conservative members of the Pharisees were resisting that. We don't know the dynamic that was going on there, but there was some infighting. They were attacking one another, A.T. Robertson calls this, quote, a pathetic confession of failure because the rest of the plotters had bungled the whole thing, end quote. Have you ever seen that happen in a group, you know? Something really bad happens and members of the group blame one another? Yeah, that's what's going on here. As I look at it, I think the Pharisees were having their Three Stooges moment. You know, at that moment where one of the Stooges says to the other Stooges, you nitwits, don't just stand there, do something. That's what was the attitude. So we see the Pharisees' angst toward one another, and we see their present words. I mean, the next thing they say here turns out to be rather prophetic. You might compare that to what Caiaphas says when Caiaphas proclaims that one should die for the whole nation, referring to Jesus. That was prophetic. And so without knowing it, the Pharisees say something prophetic here. They say, behold, the world has gone after him. Now, at the time that they said that, that was an exaggeration. But little did they know that it would come true. that the gospel would go out to the whole world and the whole world would go after him. Folks, you can find Christians everywhere around the globe today. The gospel has gone out. Now, there are many places where we still need to get the gospel, but the point is that the gospel has gone out and the world's gone after him. So it was prophetic. The frustrated Pharisees were really incensed that the crowds were going after Jesus. The whole world is going after him. They were flocking to Jesus, the very one that they hated. They despised him. They wanted him dead. And here the whole world's gone after him. They were so frustrated, but at that moment they were powerless to do anything to stop it. Because Jesus is the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. Think about these four figures or groups that we have considered from this account. First we focused on the humble King Jesus riding on a young donkey. Let me ask you, do you acknowledge him as your king? Is that something personal with you? He's not just a king. He is your King. Do you acknowledge Him as your King? Do you see Him as the Messiah King who came as God's representative to do God's work, to accomplish the work of redemption? How about the adoring crowd? We see the adoring crowd waving those palm branches and shouting, Hosanna. Blessed is the King of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord. Do you identify with them in the sense that they were so fickle? Do you mouth words of praise on Sunday and then later in the week crucify the Lord afresh? We see the clueless disciples, spiritually myopic, not understanding the scriptures, unable to perceive the spiritual significance of what was happening in their lives. Are we like that? Do we fail to see what the Lord is doing in our own lives? Do we fail to recognize the spiritual significance of the events that come into our lives? Do we gloss over the Lord's words and travel through life in blissful ignorance? Ignorance of spiritual things that are spiritually discerned? Do we just see the here and now, the physical? Do we fail to see the unseen spiritual world? And finally, we see the frustrated Pharisees. Jealous, angry, embittered. Consumed by their own vitriol. I hope this does not describe you. Because the Pharisees were enemies of Christ and of Christ's followers. And Jesus pronounced woes upon them and warned them of the flames of hell. I hope no one here is a Pharisee. Now let us be among those who run out to meet Jesus with sincere hearts. hearts of devotion to him, hearts of commitment, those who are his disciples who continue to be his disciples no matter what. Let us be among those who see Jesus as the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. He is the promised Messiah. All messianic prophecies are fulfilled in him, all of them. He is the promised King who will rule and reign over all forever and ever. He comes in the name of the Lord. He's the very Son of God in human flesh, the perfect God-man, the perfect representative of the Godhead. In Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. He comes with divine authority to do the will of the Father and the power of the Spirit. This is our King, our Messiah. Jesus is the promised Messiah King who comes in the name of the Lord. Be sure that you have accepted Him as your Messiah and serve Him as your King. Our Father, we thank you for this passage, for John's record of these events, for the Lord Himself, revealing himself, presenting himself as king of peace, who boldly comes really into the lion's den, facing his adversaries, knowing that they will, in a matter of days, kill him. And yet he came, driven on by divine purpose to accomplish the work of redemption on the cross by the shedding of His blood, to become our perfect sacrifice, the sacrifice for sin, our sin, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. O Lord, I pray that You would cause us to renew our devotion to our Messiah King. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.