Once a King, Now a Criminal
Notes
Transcript
Handout
John 12:12-19
John 12:12-19
explain where Jesus was leading up to entering Jerusalem
Jesus had been traveling toward Jerusalem because the day of Passover was drawing near
Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem
Nothing would deter Him from accomplishing His purpose
Beginning of the chapter tells us that it was 6 days before Passover
6 days before He would be crucified
V.12-15
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”
Click for Picture of Gate and #1
1. Jesus entered the city through the East Gate.
The East Gate is profound
It is sometimes called the Beautiful Gate, The Golden Gate, The Gate of Mercy
The Gate is the closets Gate to the Temple mount
It is the Gate that faces east toward the Mount of Olives.
Jesus chose to enter the city through this Gate to fulfill prophecy
Turn to Ezekiel:10
Briefly explain the Judgement of God against the people
God shows Ezekiel the corruption of the People
God reveals that even the religious leaders are corrupt
They are practicing idolatry in the very Temple of God
Because the religious leaders are not submitted to God and they are allowing the people to be led astray, God judges them
The judgement of that the spirit of God will depart the Temple and He will give the city over for invasion by Babylon
Read Ezekiel 10:1-3
I looked, and I saw the likeness of a throne of lapis lazuli above the vault that was over the heads of the cherubim. The Lord said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in. Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court.
These verses speak of Judgement
They also tell us the moment the Spirit of God moved away from His earthly throne in the Temple
The spirit of God moved from the throne to stand at the entrance of the Temple
Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
Click #2
2. The glory of the Lord stopped at the entrance of the East Gate.
We get this picture that God was lamenting the decisions of the people
As God looked back upon the city and the people that He loved, His Spirit departed the Temple
The beginning of chapter 11, God instructed Ezekiel to pronounce the judgment over the people
God brings Ezekiel to the east Gate to pronounce this judgment: v.11:1
Skip down to V.14
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, the people of Jerusalem have said of your fellow exiles and all the other Israelites, ‘They are far away from the Lord; this land was given to us as our possession.’ “Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’ “Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia in the vision given by the Spirit of God. Then the vision I had seen went up from me,
God reminds Ezekiel that His people have been scattered
They have been scattered because of sin
What is the mountain East of Jerusalem? Mount of Olives
The promise of God found in V. 17-21
“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
God will gather His people back
Click#3
3. God will restore what has been broken.
This prophecy was fulfilled in the physical
1948
This prophecy is being fulfilled in the hearts of humanity this very moment
God is calling His people back
He is calling them out of the exile of sin to be restored to Him
God will help remove the detestable things we harbor in our heart
He will give us a new heart
A heat of flesh
These verses are amazing to me
They speak to the determined effort of God to call for His people
He wants to set us free
God left the city through the East Gate because judgement was going to be poured out
The judgment was designed to prompt the people to return
The very place that God left, is the same place that He returned
Click#4
4. God wants to restore us at the point of our failure.
A few weeks ago Pastor Terry talked about this
He talked about those times when we hold onto our failure
We hold onto unforgiveness
We hold onto these things because we feel as if we do not deserve the freedom that God offers
God wants to restore us at the point of our failing
He wants to reconcile us where we fell
Click #5
5. The place where we left Jesus is the very place He will return.
He wants to restore us
He wants to heal us
He wants to offer us forgiveness in our failings so tat we can also forgive
God left the Temple in the book of Ezekiel through the East Gate
Jesus returned to Jerusalem through the same Gate
Turn back to John 12
v 12 and 13 explain palm branches
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!”
Palm branches symbolized victory, triumph, power
The Greek and Roman cultures would wave them and give them to olymipans who are celebrating victory
or to warriors who are returning from battle
They symbolized goodness or well-being because victory was secured
In our day it would have been something like a ticker tape parade
As the people waved branches and threw them at the feet of Jesus during this triumphal entry
Jesus is triumphant
He is victorious over sin
He does deliver us from torment
But these were not the things the people were celebrating
They saw the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem as a sign that He was coming to overthrow the Roman government
They wanted Jesus to restore Israel to prosperity
They wanted physical restoration
They were looking for a king take back the nation
They did not see Jesus a King who would restore their heart
The people were looking to the physical deliverance from Roman oppression
when Jesus came to heal spiritual oppression
Click #6
6. Jesus came to heal the heart.
He came to restore the brokenness of the human heart
At the time of the triumphal entry, the people could not see this.
Even the disciples could not fully grasp the mission that Jesus came to fulfill
V. 16
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
The disciples thought Jesus was coming to restore the nation to a place of prosperity as well
It was not until after they saw Jesus glorified that they realized the purpose of His first appearing
Jesus came to destroy the kingdom of darkness
Click #7
7. Jesus came to establish His Kingdom in the heart of humanity.
John tells us that as Jesus rode into the city, they were waving Palm Branches and they were shouting Hosanna
The word Hosanna, in the context of John it is a Greek word
But its origin is in the Hebrew
The word is really a combination of two different words
One means save us
the second word is please
They were shouting Please save us
How close they got to recognizing Jesus
They cried out save us
they failed to recognize that Jesus came to save them from the ultimate oppressor
the sin nature
Look with me at V. 18 and 19
For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him.”
Verse 18 points out the intent of many of the people who went to seek out the Lord.
They sought Him because He performed many signs
They were looking for something to benefit themselves.
When they began to realize that He was not who they wanted Him to to, their attitudes began to change.
We are going to take a few minutes and very briefly look at the next few chapters given by John
Remember, The events written about happen over the course of a few days.
At the end of chapter 12, Jesus continues to teach and perform signs in the presence of the people.
V. 37 tells us that seven in these signs, some people did not believe.
They hardened their hearts to what Jesus came to do
They wanted Him to be the conquering King who removes Rome from the nation
Chapter 13
We have the account of the Last Supper
Jesus washed the disciples feet
Jesus also warned them of betrayal.
He predicts Peter’s denial
Chapter 15
Jesus warns the disciples that faith in Him comes at a cost
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
Jesus gives them this warning because they would have been able to see the unrest in the city
They would have been able to witness the hearts of the people in Jerusalem change
When Jesus rode into the city they hailed Him as King
Unfortunately, the hearts of the people are beginning to change
Also in these chapters, we have the account of Jesus praying in the Garden at Gethsemane.
It was during this time that Jesus began to sweat blood at the weight of the situation
He prayed that Lord’s protection over His children
Jesus also prayed that The will of the Father would be done
He was willing to accomplish what He had come to do
Chapter 18
we are told that Jesus was arrested
He was betrayed by Judas
After He was arrested, Jesus was taken before a number of trials
He went before the High Priest, Pilate the Romas governor, and Herod the vassal king.
As they questioned, beat and spit on Jesus
They pulled out His beard
The crowds became incensed against Him
Rather that shouting “Hosanna, Blessed is the one who comes in the Name of the Lord.”
They started to shout “Crucify, Crucify, Crucify”
They chose to allow a Barabbas who was a rebel, an insurrectionist and a murderer go free so that they could place Jesus on the cross.
Then finally in chapter 19 Jesus is sentenced to death on the cross.
He willingly carried His own cross
He was hung there
His physical body died
For you
For me
Click #8
8. Jesus willingly went to the cross to Redeem His children.
In this very abbreviated fashion, we have the account of the account of the triumphal entry to the crucifixion.
What blows my mind about this account is the change in the attitude of the people.
Over the course of a few days Jesus went from being hailed as King to being condemned as a criminal.
He rode into the city and the people praised Him as King
A few days later they condemned Him as criminal
They hung Him on a cross placing a crown of thorns on His head
it is easy to blame the people in Jerusalem all those years ago
It is easy to judge them
It is easy to condemn them in our thoughts
What is not easy is to recognize that WE can suffer this same failure
It is easy to claim Jesus as our King while we are here at church
It is easy to claim Him as King when we are among fellow believers
It is easy to put Him on the throne of our hearts when we think everything is going well
We do the same thing
One day a King the next a Criminal
How quickly we allow the voice of temptation to cause us to waver in our faith
When you walk out of this building, you will be confronted with the sins of the world.
Click #9
9. What will you choose? King or Criminal?
Will He remain King in your heart
Or will you begin to see Him as criminal
Will you make excuses for your sin so that you feel justified
Will you ignore the voice of your King who is calling you to walk in His righteousness?
You need to make the choice
Click #10
10. You need to choose to allow Jesus to reign in your heart everyday!
unless you choose to make Him King of your heart you will be just like those people who praised Him one day and the next turned their back on Him demanding that He be crucified.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
Choose to recognize Jesus as you eternal King
Praise Him for this truth everyday
Click #11
11. Choose this day whom you will serve; as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!