This message is a Palm Sunday message titled,
The King Comes to Die.
Now, normally I read through the passage and
then we go through it verse by verse,
but there is so much here that I'm
going to let the passage unfold as we
go through it.
And for those of you that are note
takers, there's seven things in the passage we're
going to see.
The passage is in John chapter 12.
The seven things are the final hour, the
fickle multitude, the faithful confused, the fulfilled prophecy,
the frustrated Pharisees, the foreign pilgrims, and the
Father's witness, which is the best thing we
can ever have on our life.
The touch of the Father to validate us
for what we are in Christ.
There are around two million people crammed into
the area of Jerusalem at this time.
It's literally body to body to body to
body.
And by word of mouth, what has happened
with Lazarus has gone out.
And that's why this crowd is so excited
that Jesus has come right there to them.
And they begin to shout these things.
So let's pick up in verse 12.
And the first out of the seven thoughts
I'm going to give you is this is
the final hour in his life.
This is the final hour.
Verse 12.
The next day, a great multitude that had
come up to the feast when they heard
that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took palm
branches and went out to meet him and
cried out, Hosanna, Hosanna.
What day is this?
The next day, says verse 12.
What day is this?
This is the Sunday before Passover, the Sunday
before Passover.
He spent the Saturday Sabbath in Bethany, two
miles away from the Eastern Gate in Jerusalem.
He spent the Sabbath in Bethany at the
Sabbath when Judas complained about the oil and
the waste and the money he could have
gotten from it.
His hatred for Jesus is beginning to boil
because he's so frustrated that Jesus doesn't do
what he wants Jesus to do.
His hatred is growing.
The disciples love for him is growing and
the Pharisees hatred for him is growing.
It is in sort of a micro way,
a picture of what is a mega thing
going on on this day when they're shouting
Hosanna.
And you're going to see that unfold growing
love and growing hatred.
It is a Sunday before Passover.
It is, as I said, his hour, his
hour.
When you read through the Gospel of John,
one of the phrases you find repeated is
Jesus will say, my hour has not yet
come.
When he turned the water into wine at
Cana, he said to his mother, I'm doing
a miracle, but my hour hasn't come.
There's going to be a lot more things
happening.
This isn't the time.
And in John 7, it says, because his
hour had not yet come.
John 8, they sought to lay hands on
him.
His hour had not yet come.
Then you go to John 13, 1.
Can you just look at John 13, 1
when it validates what I'm saying?
This is his hour now before the feast
of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his
hour had come.
What does that mean?
That he would depart from this world to
the father, having loved his own were in
the world.
He loved him to the end.
He knew it was time to go to
the cross, die, rise from the dead, go
back to the father and display the greatest
possible demonstration of his love that has ever
been given the cross.
Now is the hour.
It's Sunday before Passover.
It is his hour because it's his time
on God's sovereign time clock.
And it is at his hour, very practically
speaking.
Listen to this, because he had raised Lazarus
from the dead.
You see, it's critical to see the connection
here with what is going on with this
crowd, the shouts of Hosanna.
Save now you are the king.
It's critical to see the connection with raising
Lazarus from the dead.
In fact, let me back up and say
it this way.
It is impossible to understand the events of
Palm Sunday apart from the raising of Lazarus
from the dead.
Impossible.
The text actually reveals this to us because
in John chapter 12, John actually places this
thought almost dead center in the passage.
It's in verse 17.
It's like almost right in the middle.
And it's by design in John 12, 17.
Therefore, the people, therefore, the people who were
with him when he called Lazarus out of
his tomb and raised him from the dead
bore witness.
What does that mean?
They went around telling everybody word of mouth.
And because everybody was so crammed in body
to body moving around Jerusalem, it just spread
like wildfire.
What had happened with Lazarus, therefore, they bore
witness.
Therefore, that follows the first few verses that
we looked at 12 and 13 and so
on, where they're shouting Hosanna, proclaiming him as
king.
Therefore, then reverse first back and it's saying
because of what he did with Lazarus, the
crowd was there and the people were shouting
the way that they were.
Therefore, if you don't see that, then verse
18 will help you because it is for
this reason.
So it makes it crystal clear for this
reason.
The people also met him because they heard
he had done this thing.
So it is critical to see.
He had only done it a few days
before.
It's fresh.
The miracle with Lazarus.
He had only done it two miles away,
somewhere around the area of their home at
Bethany was the tomb of Lazarus.
It's very close.
It was all done by design.
It was his hour because he had raised
Lazarus from the dead and it was his
life to give this Jesus Christ.
Our Lord and Savior is no victim.
He is almighty God who went to the
cross and died to save us from our
sins.
He is Victor.
He's not a victim.
He's not a man with a good cause
that went wrong.
And so you must see he had timed
the incident with Lazarus to set up this
day and this scene.
And the shouts you hear are because of
the way he handled the sickness and the
death of Lazarus and the raising him from
the dead.
It was his life to give.
I say that because he forced his own
death by setting up the timing on the
raising of Lazarus from the dead when he
was four days in the tomb decomposing something
beyond comprehension, which then had a way of
eclipsing all the other times he raised people
from the dead.
In other words, when Jairus's daughter died and
he raised her from the dead, you could
be outside and argue, you know what?
She was only sort of in a coma
or something.
He didn't really raise her from the dead.
The widow at Nain, when they were in
the funeral procession and he raised her son
from the dead because he had compassion on
her, you could make up some kind of
similar argument.
He was probably just really wiped out and
looking really bad, you know, so they thought
he was dead.
But he really wasn't.
And then Jesus, you know, had some kind
of super energy he put into him and
he got up, woke up, whatever.
You can maybe explain those away.
You cannot explain away a man dead in
a tomb, wrapped up and decomposing physically.
You can't explain that away.
Loose him, unwrap him, let the whole world
see that there's fresh, brand new flesh underneath.
And he is very much alive.
By the way, we'll be around for dinner
later on this week.
Drop by and say hello if you want,
you know.
So Jesus, it was his life to give
in John 10, 18.
He said, no one takes my life from
me.
No one.
I lay it down of myself.
John 10, 18.
I have the power to lay it down.
I have the power to take it again.
This command I have received from my father.
It was his life to give and he
forced his own death by what he did
with Lazarus.
And that is an amazing thing.
An amazing thing.
He was also.
In the timing of God's plan, the ultimate
Passover lamb.
People are coming up to the Feast of
Passover.
They're bringing their lambs with them.
And that is because they would sacrifice a
lamb at Passover.
One lamb for 10 people.
Then they have the Passover meal.
Which Jesus at the Last Supper turned into
communion.
We call it now the Lord's Supper.
But when John the Baptist was preaching in
John 1, 29, he saw Jesus coming toward
him and he said.
This is Passover lamb language.
He said, behold, the lamb of God who
takes away the sin of your life for
a year.
No.
Behold, the lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the whole world.
Look, here he comes.
The one who will fulfill the whole picture
of Passover and all the lambs that have
ever been sacrificed.
Here comes the last one.
The lamb of God.
He will take away the sins of the
world when he is sacrificed.
So it is his time for all of
these reasons.
And I'll tell you something.
When when you get into this.
And you begin to understand it.
You start to realize the whole thing with
Lazarus so much more clearly.
So much more clearly.
It is his time.
When Jesus delayed and didn't go to the
tomb to Lazarus when he was sick.
Remember, it's his best friend.
He would have rushed to him unless there
was something very significant.
He delayed on purpose to force the whole
issue, as I've shown you.
But you remember when the Bible says right
before he raised Lazarus from the dead, he's
standing outside the tomb.
And it's the shortest verse in the whole
Bible.
Jesus wept.
Do you ever wonder why?
A lot of discussion as to why.
Why did Jesus weep there?
The Greek language, the original language says he
began from the deepest part of him to
sob convulsively.
So before he raises him from the dead,
he stops and he's standing there.
And all of a sudden he burst into
tears and he begins to sob convulsively.
And you're thinking, why?
Well, I'll tell you one thing, because when
he got that note, he knew his best
friend was going to die and he knew
there would come a moment when he's gasping
for his last breath.
And it was probably with the name Jesus
in it.
You could have healed me, Lord.
Why didn't you come and save me?
Now I'm dying and he dies.
And just the pain of his friend having
to suffer and die like that.
But there's something else.
As he's standing there.
Weeping.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
He's forcing his own death by this miracle.
He knows this is the final miracle that
will trigger my death.
Once I do this, when he comes out
of that tomb, it's only going to be
days before I am in one.
I will bring him out of the tomb.
It will spread like wildfire.
The miracle.
It will gather such a fevered pitch in
a zealous crowd of two million people or
so.
And then they will want to make me
king.
And within a week, I'm going to be
on the cross dying.
I'll be in the tomb dead and I
will face the whole thing of bearing the
wrath of God and the sin of the
world.
You know what it is when he weeps
at the tomb?
It's a preview of the garden of Gethsemane
agony.
This triggers the event which will lead to
my death on the cross.
The time has come.
My time has come.
I'm going to die for the sin of
the world.
I'm going to bear the filth of the
human race.
My holy soul.
I'm going to go through the agony of
separation from the father.
And it's just all blended together in there.
But the Bible also says that for the
joy that was set before him, he endured
the cross.
It's also sobbing convulsively with the pain of
the cross and the joy that's beyond it.
But oh God, what you're going to do
for them forever in heaven.
It is the ultimate extreme of emotion that
a human being could possibly experience.
Jesus wept because he triggered the moment that
set everything in motion that would take him
to the cross.
And it's all centered on Lazarus.
Suddenly, now you can never look at that
the same.
And you'll never question again why, when they
hand him the note, your friend is sick.
He didn't go.
He had to wait.
He actually said to the person that had
the note, Lazarus is sick.
But Lazarus sickness is not on a death.
Lazarus is sleeping.
This is for.
Here comes the glory of God.
And then you connect that with the weeping,
the glory of God, meaning the cross and
salvation.
It all connects.
Our God is amazing.
The final hour.
So we come to the fickle multitude.
John 12, 12.
The next day, a great multitude that had
come to the feast when they heard that
Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
As they told, as I told you, there
would have been multiplied thousands of Passover lambs
because they would come on the 10th of
the month of Nisan.
They would come and arrive early in the
city because they were to spend four days
with their Passover lamb.
You would get close to that lamb before
it died.
So that it's death would really tear your
heart out.
And then you'd understand how sin tears up
the heart of God, your sin.
So they're pouring into Jerusalem with the lambs
and.
Comment on the.
You would begin to spend a time on
the 10th of Nisan.
The lamb would be slain on the 14th
of Nisan on Passover right before right at
Passover.
Then the Sabbath would come.
Josephus right around this time did a census.
And in a census, he discovered that.
He researched it and he discovered there were
two hundred and fifty six thousand Passover lambs
sacrificed.
Right around this time.
Two hundred and fifty six thousand Passover lamb
sacrifice.
Ten people per lamb.
That's two and a half million people.
Right.
So possibly there's around two and a half
million people in Jerusalem at this time.
That's how I came up with that figure
from Josephus, the historian.
It's accurate.
So they're crowded in there and you have
this sea of white Passover lambs.
And here is Jesus.
He knows he's the lamb of God.
And the number of the multitude is so
huge.
But the mindset of the multitude is what
really arrests our attention.
It says in John 12, 13, they were
shouting the king of Israel.
The king of Israel.
This crowd is.
How can I put it?
They are supernaturally charged.
Because of the miracle that he did with
Lazarus.
You say, how does it connect?
Think about it.
The miracle of Lazarus occurred right at the
center of Israel.
It's a detonation.
It occurs right at the center of Israel.
And it happens right at a time they
were looking for their Messiah.
They said to John the Baptist, are you
the Messiah?
It was a time in their history they
were looking for the Messiah.
But.
They were looking for a political revolutionary Messiah.
So when they hear Lazarus is raised from
the dead, it sets off a wholesale messianic
fever.
Across the whole city and through all these
people.
Because this would have to be the Messiah.
He's here.
The mindset of the multitude is that their
political revolutionary Messiah.
To be king and throw off the Roman
yoke is finally here.
And so the mindset issues forth with shouts
that come out of the heart, out of
the mind, out through the mouth.
The shouts of the multitude.
You hear them crying out, Hosanna.
Hosanna.
Blessed be he who comes in the name
of the Lord.
The king of Israel, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna.
What does Hosanna mean?
Save now.
You know what they wanted.
You know what they're saying.
If you think two million people are shouting
out, save us from our sins today.
You're absolutely wrong.
They're shouting, save us right now today from
the Roman conquerors.
Take that power that you have and throw
off the yoke of Rome.
Save us today.
You're our king.
Do it now.
That's what they're shouting.
There may be a few in the crowd.
They're saying, save us from our sins.
But there's not many.
There's not many.
As the praises flow from their lips, tears
begin to flow from the eyes of Jesus.
Hold your place and turn to Luke.
Let me show you.
Luke chapter 19.
They're all excited.
They're waving palm branches.
They're laying their coats on the path before
him so he can ride on this nice
royal carpet.
They're laying out with their coats and their
palm branches as their king.
And as they're shouting his praises, and as
the praises escape their lips, the tears flow
from his eyes.
Luke 19.41. Luke 19.41. Now as
he drew near, he saw the city and
wept over it.
So he's coming down the Mount of Olives,
which faces directly the city.
Coming from the east, facing to the west.
He looks over the city, sees all these
people, and they're already there shouting.
And he saw the city and he wept
over it.
He saw the people, he wept over them.
He's not just weeping over a bunch of
buildings and walls.
It's the people.
And he was weeping, verse 42, saying, if
you had known, even you, especially in this
your day, the things that make for your
peace.
The only way a human being, a human
heart has peace is when it's forgiven of
its sin.
The only time your mind and your conscience
has peace is when it's cleansed from sin.
The book of Hebrews says the blood of
bulls and goats could not cleanse a man's
conscience, but the blood of Christ cleanses the
conscience and brings you peace.
Jesus said, if you would have only known
the things that make for your peace, but
now they're hidden from your eyes and you're
rejecting me.
So he says, verse 43, for the days
will come when upon come upon you, when
your enemies will build an embankment around you,
surround you and close you in on every
side.
Level you, your children with you to the
ground.
They will not leave in you one stone
upon another because you did not know the
time of your visitation.
Here I come.
And you miss the entire reason for which
I'm coming.
And he's speaking of the time when Titus
Vespasian would come and conquer this city in
70 A.D. The number of the multitude
is huge in the millions.
The mindset of the multitude is a revolutionary
messiah to save them from the Roman yoke.
The shout is do it today.
The ultimate plan was of the multitude was
simply this.
They wanted a king and they saw in
Jesus this an invincible king who could raise
up an invincible army.
An invincible king.
This man walked on the water.
This man enabled another man to walk on
water.
This man calmed the storm.
This man opened the eyes of the blind.
This man gave new ears to the deaf.
This man healed the lame.
This man has power to be an invincible
king.
This man could raise up an invincible army.
Listen, if he can calm storms, walk on
water, have power over demons, recreate parts of
bodies, have power of disease and raise people
from the dead, he can lead an army
no one could ever stop.
And if he could feed multitudes with a
boy's lunch, which is what he did.
He was there preaching to the multitudes.
Philip came to Jesus and he said, what
are we going to do?
I've calculated it out on my calculator, Lord.
We're out here.
There's so many people.
There's no way we can feed the people
because all we have is resources, a boy's
lunch.
And Jesus said, oh, really?
He said, pray over it.
Give it to me.
He prayed over it.
He broke it.
He blessed.
He gave and he fed the whole multitude.
And when he did that, do you remember
what the people did?
John 16, 15 says that they wanted to
take him by force and make him their
what?
King.
Here is the man that has the power
to feed an endless army.
Here is the man that has all the
power we need.
This is the man we want for our
king.
This must be our Messiah.
This must be the one to throw us
off, throw off the Roman yoke and lead
us to freedom.
This is our king.
They were going to take him by force
and make him king.
So he slipped away by himself alone and
he sent the disciples away in the boat
to safeguard them from the mindset of the
misguided multitude because he was not a military
king.
He was not a military Messiah.
He came to save us from our sins,
to be king of kings and our Lord
of Lords forever and ever in heaven in
a new kingdom, his kingdom.
You see, very often you have so many,
so deceived.
And so few that see clearly.
That doesn't mean the few are wrong.
It means there's many deceived.
And that is, goes on all the time.
So they were wanting, you know what they
wanted?
They wanted what they wanted.
Save us now because what we see in
you is what we want.
We want freedom from the Romans.
And not only that, we want to raise
up the most invincible, incredible army where you
kill one of them and you come along
and raise them from the dead.
They want to starve us out in our
city.
We start out with a boy's lunch, a
couple of pieces of pita bread, a few
little fish, and we could be in that
city for years.
All you'd have to do is just pray
over and keep passing it around.
We could take up baskets with fragments full
and we could go on and on.
And you could.
Oh, my gosh.
No one could defeat us.
We could conquer the world.
We could have our kingdom.
You are the one.
You can bring us what we want.
You're the one to give me what I
want.
But, you know, he didn't come to give
them what they wanted.
He came and the kingdom they wanted.
He came to give them what they needed,
which was forgiveness for their sins and the
kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven.
I don't know if you're one of those
people that always wants to use Jesus.
There's so many.
They want to use Jesus to get their
following.
They want to use Jesus to get their
thing.
They want to use Jesus.
The word of faith people tell you, use
Jesus, you know, to get your wealth and
health and prosperity and everything else.
And they're the only ones getting it, the
leaders of the movement, the false prophets.
Want to use Jesus.
Listen, and we all have something of that
in us.
He doesn't ever let us use him.
He wants to save you, forgive you, transform
you.
And guess what?
Live in you.
Then he wants to use you for his
glory, filled with his love.
So here they are, the fickle crowd.
We're going to really shift gears now and
haul through the rest of this.
The final hour, the fickle crowd.
But now you understand what's really going on.
And in the middle of this, you have
in the middle of all this and he's
in control of all of it.
You have this very detailed prophecy from Zechariah
nine, nine.
It says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,
shout daughter of Jerusalem.
See, your king comes to you righteous, having
salvation.
Gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle, not military, gentle, gentle
and writing.
Not on a white stallion, which is what
kings wrote on to conquest.
Writing on a donkey's colt, the foal of
a donkey.
You want to know why he sat on
that donkey to fulfill that prophecy?
And he did in the midst of all
this.
Can you imagine?
So detailed.
Go get me a donkey.
Go down and see this certain disciple.
Tell him I need his donkey's colt and
bring him back.
And he fulfills that prophecy.
But not only did he sit on the
donkey's colt to fulfill prophecy.
He sat on the donkey's colt to send
a message.
You know what the message was?
Kings came to conquer on white stallions.
Kings came forth on white donkeys to say
I come for peace only.
There will be no fight.
It's a white flag.
He comes waving the white flag.
If you think I'm coming to lead an
army, behold the white flag.
And so as they were shouting Hosanna, save
now, save now, somebody would have said, hey,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
He's not on a white stallion.
He's on a white donkey.
He's got the white flag, man.
Don't you see the white flag?
Hey, you see the white?
Goes through the whole crowd.
He's coming for peace.
Don't you get it?
And he makes sure they do get it.
In verse 16, you have the final hour.
Here he is on the donkey and the
fickle crowd fulfilling prophecy.
And you come to the faithful confused.
His own disciples were 16.
His disciples did not understand these things at
first.
So right there, they don't understand what's going
on.
They're just all caught up in the enthusiasm
of it.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Shout it out, man.
Get a palm branch.
They didn't understand what was going on.
But when Jesus was glorified after the death
on the cross and the resurrection, they remembered,
they looked back and went, oh, wow.
Man, we had it all wrong.
The disciples are really slow learners.
And they're confused here.
They're faithful, they love him, but they're confused.
I thank God he just didn't give up
on them right there.
He didn't because having loved his own, he
loved them to the end.
That means literally he loved them to the
uttermost.
And so he will do with you and
me.
And so they are confused, but they are
faithful.
Then we come to the frustrated Pharisees.
Can you imagine their frustration by this time?
They have had three years of this guy
casting out demons, healing deaf people.
Lame people can walk.
I mean, you name it.
He's done it.
They can't stop him.
They've tried everything.
They are so frustrated.
They were so mad that at the dinner
with Lazarus the night before, they put a
contract on his head.
Read it for yourself.
They set about to make a plot to
kill him.
They put a contract on his head.
They did put a contract on his head.
It gave them money.
To who?
You know his name.
Judas.
They're so frustrated here because all the people
are shouting for him.
And in verse 17, they become absolutely vicious.
Therefore, the people who were with him when
he called Lazarus out of his tomb and
raised him from the dead bore witness.
For this reason, the people also met him
because they heard he had done this sign.
The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, among themselves,
to each other.
They are just all frustrated and angry.
Look, you see, you are accomplishing nothing.
They're pointing at each other, blaming it on
each other.
You know what, you're doing nothing for the
cause, buddy.
Well, how about you?
You know, back and forth and back and
forth.
They're just fighting among themselves.
And so they become absolutely vicious.
And you know what they do?
They stand back and they study the crowd.
They go, huh, donkey, no stallion, white flag,
no conquer.
You know what, guys?
I think we may have a loophole here.
I think we can turn this crowd, just
turn their hearts toward him wholesale, millions of
them.
I do believe if we show them what
he's all about, that he is not going
to fulfill their dreams.
I do believe we can make them hate
him as much as we do.
If we just convince them he will not
fulfill their dreams, they'll hate him because they
know he has the power to do it.
And if he refuses to do it, they
will hate him more than they've ever hated
anything in their whole life.
And they will be with us to kill
him.
This will work.
And they hatched that plan right there.
And it worked.
So you have the frustrated Pharisees hatching their
plan.
We're almost done.
But in the middle of all this, you
always have so many that are deceived about
Jesus.
They just want to use him for their
thing.
But here come these foreign pilgrims.
They're Greeks.
And there's always a few sincere ones that
just want to know him.
And he is always very sensitive to them.
So here they come.
John 12, 20.
There were certain Greeks among them who came
up to worship at the feast.
They would have been called God fearers at
that time.
Greeks.
So they came to Philip.
Why?
It's a Greek name.
They found the guy with the Greek name.
Came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of
Galilee.
And they asked him, saying, Sir, this should
be the prayer of every person that knows
Jesus Christ and claims to be a Christian.
Sir, we would see Jesus.
And I see how through all of this,
God allowed them to work their way through
the crowd and then meet a man who
could actually get them to Jesus.
Sir, we would see Jesus.
I love what Philip does.
Philip goes, it says, and Philip came and
told who?
Andrew.
We haven't heard about him since he went
to Peter, his brother, and said, Peter, listen,
come.
I found the Messiah.
Andrew was a one on one man.
Andrew wasn't the guy with all the flash
and the limelight and everything else.
Andrew was a one on one, very warm,
very personal, very effective one on one.
So Philip says, I know just the guy
who get me into Jesus.
Where's Andrew?
We've got to keep it quiet, smooth and
direct.
We tell Peter he's going to be an
uproar.
We got Greeks here.
You know, so he goes and he tells
Andrew.
And.
Andrew, in turn, Andrew and Philip then went
and told Jesus.
And now look what Jesus says.
Here's all this expectation, all this energy.
And verse twenty three.
God uses this to bring out the truth.
He uses these sincere pilgrims.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he's no,
he says in verse twenty three.
Jesus answered, saying the hour has come.
The son of man should be glorified.
Lazarus is.
Sleeping, I go to wake him.
The sickness has come that I might be
glorified.
He now says to the people around him,
the hour has come, the son of man
should be glorified.
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a
grain of wheat falls to the ground and
dies, it remains alone.
But if it dies, it produces much grain.
He who loves his life will lose it.
He who hates his life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.
If anyone serves me, let him follow me.
And where I am, my servant will be
also.
If anyone serves me, him, my father will
honor.
We would see Jesus.
Jesus says, you want to see me?
I'll tell you what you need to see
about me.
I'm not coming and conquer.
I'm coming to die.
You want to follow me, then follow me.
I'm going to go to the cross.
I'm going to die.
I'm going to raise from the dead.
And if you follow me, you will have
your cross.
You'll have to pick it up daily and
follow after me.
Deny yourself.
Be the light of the world.
If you want to follow me, this is
what I'm all about.
To an agrarian society, he uses an agrarian
example.
Unless a corn of wheat falls to the
ground and die and is buried, it abides
alone.
It doesn't grow and sprout and bring forth
all the fruit.
I'm coming here.
If you all want to know, he's shouting,
Hosanna, save now.
I'm coming here to die.
I'm not coming to throw off the Roman
yoke and the Pharisees are on the side
going, yes!
Now we got him.
And the disciples right around looking at these
Greek guys are going, huh?
What?
Hmm.
We thought, huh?
Ford.
Don't forget the garden.
They forsook him and they fled.
They didn't understand till after.
Now he makes a statement.
It begins then to sweep through the crowd.
And everybody's going, wait a minute.
Did you hear what he said?
He said he's come to die.
He's come to die.
And he goes through the whole crowd of
millions all around the city.
And you can hear the shouts of Hosanna
begin to quiet down and quiet down.
And it starts in the middle and works
its way out until it's silent.
He's not our king.
He's not going to throw off the Roman
yoke.
He's coming to die.
And now they're beginning to just stare at
him.
Phew.
He goes in.
He looks around the temple.
He leaves.
That's all he did that day.
By the end of the day, they hated
him.
And the Pharisees began to talk to him
all and really stirred them up until within
a few days, the same crowd that shouted
Hosanna is shouting what?
Crucify him.
We hate this man.
He did not give us what we wanted.
But you know what?
The disciples are confused.
The multitudes are deceived.
And Jesus is right.
He's right.
And he's doing the right thing.
And he's crystal clear.
And the father validates it.
You let the father validate you in your
life.
That's enough.
So here's what happens.
He says that.
And then the father gets in.
Here's the last thing.
Verses 27 to 33.
The purpose as king was to die, conquer
sin and Satan, not the soldiers of Rome.
So verse 27.
Now my soul is troubled.
And what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour.
But for this purpose, I came to this
hour.
His purpose is a dying king was validated
right there by his father.
Verse 28.
He says, Father, glorify your name.
Look at this.
Then a voice came from heaven saying, I
have both glorified it and will glorify it
again.
And listen how loud it was.
Therefore, the people, verse 29, who stood by
heard it and said that it had thundered.
Others said an angel spoke to him.
You know, you know, when you have a
thunderstorm around here, you see the lightning.
And if it's really close.
And there's a lot of it.
But you're gone.
Hold on.
Here it comes.
And it's like.
One thousand one.
One thousand two.
And you're in your house and go home.
I've had a lot of experience with this,
but that one really kind of shook me
up.
I hope it isn't any closer than that.
So I got those lightning rods last year.
I'm going to die.
I came to die.
You're missing the whole thing.
I came to die.
And that's the right thing.
And the father thunders.
Yes, it is.
I have glorified.
Your name.
He says.
I will glorify it again.
Oh, God.
And Jesus answered and said, then the voice
that you just heard did not come because
of me.
It came for you.
You needed this.
I didn't.
Because now is the judgment of the world.
Now is the ruler of this world cast
out.
And if I am lifted up from the
earth, I will draw all people to myself
my way from my kingdom.
John adds this looking back this, he said,
signifying the death he would die.
Jesus Christ is not a victim.
Jesus Christ was in control of his life,
his whole life.
He forced his own death.
He died on the cross because you are
a sinner and you need forgiveness for your
sins.
He rose again from the dead for your
justification so that you have a new standing
in him.
Just as if you'd never committed one sin
justified.
By the blood of Christ.
Well, he didn't give the crowd what they
wanted.
The disciples were that day confused.
He was doing the right thing.
Cross is always the right way.
Cross of Jesus Christ.
If you come to the cross, do you
know him?
If you come to the place where you've
said, Lord, not my way, but your way.
I don't want to use you for what
I want.
I want you to give me what I
need.
Forgiveness.
Eternal life.
And give me your will.
May it be done and not mine.
Your power fill me because I don't have
any.
And may you be glorified in my life.
Turn your heart to Christ now.
Let's do it together now.
Make it fresh and new.
Lord, we give our hearts to you.
Forgive us, Lord Jesus, of our sin.
Save us.
Save me, Lord, to the uttermost.
Fill me with the power of your Holy
Spirit.
Lead me.
Guide me.
Take me to heaven when I die.
Bring heaven to my heart here while I
live.
May I live for your glory all the
days of my life.
And then dwell in the house of the
Lord forever when it's over.
Lord, we love you.
We praise you.
Fill us now with your life.
And we ask it in the name of
your Son and by his blood which alone
saves.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.