Death or Life - There is a choice!
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· 7 viewsChrist's Triumphal Entry falls on deaf ears!
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41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
(NKJV): Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
The enemies in view proved to be the Roman soldiers under Titus who besieged Jerusalem as Jesus described, breached its walls, and finally leveled it in 70 A.D. (cf. 21:20–24). The reason for its destruction was its failure to realize Messiah’s visit and His offer of salvation. Consequently His visit would result in judgment.
Tom Constable Dallas Theological Seminary
Palm Sunday, a day of anticipation, of celebration, but also, introspection.
The event had been expected for centuries, foretold by Israel’s prophets, and an important event marking the Lord’s entry and presentation to Israel as their messiah!
9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.
Indeed a most glorious day for Israel!
But the event fell flat!
The fanfare was quickly over.
The street sweepers were dispensed and the cleanup begun, as the crowd was quickly pacified and directed to some other thing..
What do we say about this?
How do we reconcile the nearsightedness of the Israelites or their rulers for that matter?
And yet, this scenario repeats itself over and over again.
I wonder what God is thinking about our world at this moment?
Is Jesus weeping over us?
This is Palm Sunday! Normally, this would be a day of great celebration in church buildings a bit more crowded than usual.
They would be singing and smiling and feeling that special warmth in their heart!
That would be under normal circumstances. But this year is anything but normal! Isn’t it?
As a nation we have enjoyed the quiet blissful years of ignorance! and we have been ambivalent to the heavenly message.
we have been ambivalent to the heavenly message.
We have turned up our noses at the grace of God, and counted the sacrifice of His Son optional to our happiness.
29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
We applauded the entrance of our Lord, but we quickly turned our attention to other things.
We have been just like the people of Jerusalem, who didn’t know the day of His visitation.
The scriptures tell us that today is the day of salvation.
2 For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
We have sent out the post cards, distributed the tracts, invited the masses, loved them, helped them, prayed for them!
And still, they are not convinced!
Because we have a nation that doesn’t believe God, or trust that He’s in control. Because if they did, they would be on their knees!
They would lift up their voice as one and put on sack cloth and ashes, and repent as Nineveh did!
The Covid 19 pandemic isn’t a health crisis as much as it is a spiritual crisis!
Americans believe that they can overcome anything by themselves. They believe in the power of us. Pandemics have come and gone. But if not for the mercy if God, we would have been wiped out long ago!
At the turn of the 20th century, the world was struck with the influenza epidemic, dubbed the Spanish flu. It killed up to 50 million people worldwide. The month of October 1918 was the worst for America. In one month, 195,000 people died in this country alone.
Among the counted, were my two would be great aunts. My grandfather’s two sisters both very young children, died of influenza. My grandfather’s family was forced to place their bodies outside the door, where they were picked up and cremated with the thousands.
But we eventually beat it, because we invented a vaccine.
Yet, influenza keeps mutating every year as it spreads its death upon the world. 23000 Americans have already died in this country since January from it.
It seems like once there is a relative safety net for our modern plagues, we are ok with it, and it’s back to normal, regardless of the death toll.
Covid 19 will be the same. But, as we falsely convince ourselves that we can handle anything, that we are as the new Marty Walsh commercial says, “Boston Strong”, we are further lulled into sleep about our spiritual condition.
America is like Jerusalem when Christ entered. We are not aware as a nation that our savior has come.
We have rejected Him. We have turned away from the only real hope there is!
And so, we will be judged.
And, I say this because the Bible says it.
Yet, every crisis we face in this world is not the immediate judgment of God, but i think is due simply by natural causes produced by sin in the world.
Recently, in one of our zoom Bible studies, our small group pondered over this question, “does sin have anything to do with physical health?”
I do not see how it cannot!
One, concerning the tower at Siloam that fell on some men killing them, and
We only need to look at the result of Adam and Eve’s sin in Genesis: After they ate the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened, they now knew evil, and they began to die physically.
Ever since Adam and Eve left the garden, there has been sickness, and heartache, and evil. And it is only getting worse as time draws to a close.
Why? Because as I just pointed out, God told them all the way back at the beginning, "in the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die."
We have been dying ever since, and will continue to die.
That’s why, this entire crisis is not what we need to focus on, but the reason for the crisis!
This is why Jesus, before even entering the gates of Jerusalem, wept over it!
He knew that they had already rejected Him, and their demise was inevitable!
All the these pandemics, crises, wars, natural disasters, death, is still tempered by the mercy of Almighty God.
But one day, it will all come to an end.
Take another look at the Triumphal Entry of Christ.
He
Jesus is presented as King in fulfillment of scripture.
They hail Him and fail Him.
Within Four days He is arrested, Condemned, scourged, and crucified.
When on the cross, bearing the full weight of our sin, paying the price required for sin forever, He gives up His life, and the temple vail is torn in two, exposing the Holy Place signifying the end of sacrifices.
Then 50 days after the passover, the church is birthed, a new covenant established, the old having been taken away.
Then, as predicted, the complete razing of Jerusalem and slaughter of those in its walls.
My friends, God has told us what is coming, a day of judgment upon the world!
Death lurks at the door.
But, the good news is that Jesus is life! It is not found in anything we do, or some cure, or some new thinking. Life is abiding in only one source, and that source is Jesus!
This is why the triumphal entry of Christ is so important!
This is why we celebrate!
This is why we must herald it to the world!
Jesus equals Life.
The absence of Jesus equals death.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.