Why Did the People Greet Jesus as the Messiah?

Tom:

We’re continuing with the gospel of John and we are in John chapter 12 and we are going to pick up with verse 16, Dave, I’m going to start there but this is addressing what took place when Jesus came into Jerusalem. We refer to it as Palm Sunday but he came into it sitting on the foal of a donkey.Verse 16:“These things understood not his disciples at the 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.”

Dave:

So obviously, it wasn’t a set-up.They didn’t even know what was happening—amazing!

Tom:

It is interesting.Sometimes we think, oh these are His disciples, they sat at His feet and learned from Him for probably a period of three years, and they took everything in.But they didn’t understand many things; they didn’t understand the Scriptures.

Dave:

Only when we get to the end of Chapter 14, Jesus says, “I have many things to say unto you but you are not able to bear them now, but when he, the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth.”They did not understand; they didn’t even know he would rise from the dead; they didn’t know he was supposed to be or that he had to be crucified.Remember to the two on the road to Emmaus.

Tom:

Even though he told them time and time again.

Dave:

Yes, and Jesus said, “Fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; ought not Christ to have suffered these things…”—and it said at the beginning of Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them all the Scriptures and things concerning himself.But they didn’t know, they didn’t understand and the Rabbis—pretty hard to say, I don’t think they understood either but even if they did their hearts were so hard they’re going to kill Lazarus, as we’ve just seen to get him out of the way.They know Lazarus has been raised from the dead, so it’s amazing the blindness of their hearts.

Tom:

Dave, we can fall into a blindness this way and you know, again, this program we’re taping it for the first week in January but it will probably be released by the end of the month.My point here is that we’re looking ahead to the year and our encouragement, my encouragement to myself, my exhortation to myself is to read the Scriptures.I can fall into these kinds of things if I don’t know the Scriptures, if I don’t know what God wants.And we’ve talked about some philosophical ideas, not really, basic truth that God has laid out for us and unless I know those things how can I do them?I have to be enabled to do them by His Spirit but I need to know these things.Our exhortation to our listeners is to search the Scriptures, to read God’s word, to have this in your heart and the Holy Spirit can take hold of something.The Holy Spirit, who is our teacher, can bring these things to heart and to mind and enable us to do these things in obedience to the Lord.

Dave:

He’s not likely to bring them to mind if we haven’t read them and studied them and learned them—“Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee…”—“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way;by taking heed thereto according to thy word...”You know, so many people that fall into cults or fall into false doctrine or just become wayward or lose their joy, no longer serving the Lord is because they don’t know the word of God.If you know the word of God as soon as somebody says something—Bingo!Oh wait a minute, this is what the Bible says.That is going to protect you, this is our protection from error.Well it goes on and it says, “The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave and raised him from the dead bear record.”Now these people, in other words, there’s a buzz going on and they are saying to the others in the crowd, “Were you there?Did you see it?I was there!”And, like a ripple through the whole community, I mean, they have all heard of this and it says, “For this cause the people also met him for that they heard that he had done this miracle.”So that was what brought them out.They’ve heard about this and, you know, it’s amazing of the timing of the Lord.This Scripture had to be fulfilled that he would ride into Jerusalem on this donkey—Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, “Rejoice O daughter of Jerusalem.Shout for joy, you King comes…” and so forth.How was that Scripture going to be fulfilled?Well, what do you know?Jesus, we saw in Chapter 11, when they brought word to him that Lazarus was sick, he stayed a little bit longer.When he got there Lazarus had been dead four days.Then he raises him from the dead—an incredible miracle! that just the word spreads everywhere and now when he rides into Jerusalem on this donkey on what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday, the people lined the streets.They hailed him as the Messiah in fulfillment of the Scriptures.But the Pharisees, verse 19, said among themselves, “Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.”I mean, they had said, in fact they are still saying it, “We don’t dare arrest him.”They had a price on his head, but now here’s the feast of the Passover and Jerusalem is crowded with pilgrims who have come from all over Israel and even from other countries, and now they are hailing him as the Messiah and the Rabbis say, “Wait a minute, we don’t dare to arrest him now, the people would stone us.”But it had to be on the feast day.Amazing how it all works out!So Judas goes to them at night and he says, Wait a minute, guys, You don’t need to be afraid of the mob, I’ll tell you where he is, where he spends the night, you can go there and get him when he is all alone, everybody is asleep and you can take him.And they bargained and for thirty pieces of silver, exactly as the Scripture said.Back there in Zechariah again, God speaking says, Well, okay, what do you think I’m worth? Count out my price.And it says, And they counted out for me thirty pieces of silver, a goodly price that they priced me.It was the price of a slave.God is being sarcastic, oh that’s what you think I am worth, and they counted out thirty pieces of silver and I said, “Cast it to the Potter in the House of the Lord.”And Judas comes back and he throws it down in the temple and they use it to buy as Potter’s Field.The interweaving of all of the prophecies from The Old Testament and their fulfillment in Scripture and you go to, the first sermon I guess it was that Paul preached in Acts 13 as he and Barnabas set out on their missionary journey the first time and he tells how—well, the rulers, because they didn’t know the Scripture, they fulfilled the Scriptures in everything they have done to him.You would think if they had known the Scriptures they have said, Wait a minute, guys, wait a minute, he must be the Messiah—well, we don’t believe he’s the Messiah so let’s not do this because this is what the prophet said we would do.But they were ignorant and they did it.And now the Pharisees are saying, “Well, I mean, the whole world is gone after him”—

Tom”

But Dave, let me jump on that.For how long?There was enthusiasm for Jesus the Messiah, but not only did they then arrest him secretly but when he was brought before the public where was all of that enthusiasm then, in the heart of men?

Dave:

Amazing!Away with him!Crucify him!I think in that mob the cries, “Crucify him, we’ll not have this man reign over us.”There were probably many that had been fed by Jesus, who had been healed by Jesus, but their hearts had not been changed.It goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning; God wants our hearts, he doesn’t just want our enthusiasm, he doesn’t just want our Sunday morning only attendance and I think that goes back again to Romans chapter 2 that we were talking about when with patience and continuing on in looking forward to the coming of the Lord, to the glory that will be revealed to us and so forth.

Tom:

Now Dave, how then does Jeremiah’s words fit into this—“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?”That heart needs to be changed, doesn’t it?

Dave:

Absolutely, and it’s for that reason that David—David understood that—you could see why he would understand something about the evil of his own heart after what he had done—adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah, her husband, left out there where he would be killed, and so forth.And so in Psalm 139 David says, “Search me, O, God, know my heart, Try me and know my thoughts, See if there be any wicked way in me, Lead me in the way everlasting.”And we have to continually cry out to God, “Lord, I don’t even know my own heart.”I’ve probably mentioned it before.I can remember being on my knees praying for humility, thought I got it, the next thing I knew I was proud that I had become so humble.I mean, our hearts are so deceitful and we have to just continually say, Lord, take me and fill me with your Spirit, guide me, use me, be my life, this is what I want.And we see that in these people; they were not won to Christ.They were enthusiastic like we see people Sunday morning, enthusiastic and during the week, try to do business with them!We want to be sure that our hearts are genuinely won by Him.