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Missing the Opportunity
A Palm Sunday sermon by
Rev. Jim Pardue
Interim Preacher, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
March 16, 2008
I'd like for you to take your Bible and we will read our passage of scripture
for the day. It's in the book of Luke. It is chapter 19. We will begin
reading at verse 37. It is one of the four accounts of what we call Palm
Sunday, of Jesus coming into Jerusalem for the last time. I'll just remind you
that He is coming in on a weekend, the next weekend He has already been
crucified and is dead. So let me read with you, Luke chapter 19, verse 37.
“When He came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the
whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the
miracles they had seen. Blessed is the king that comes in the name of the
Lord. Peace and heaven and glory in the highest.
“Some of the Pharisees and the crowd said to Jesus, 'teacher, rebuke your
disciples.'
'I
say to you,' He replied, 'if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'
“As they approached Jerusalem, and He saw the city, He wept over it and said,
'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace. But
now it is hidden from your eyes. The day will come upon you when your enemies
will build an embankment against you, and will encircle you and hem you in on
every side. They will dash you in the crowd, you and your children within the
walls. They will not leave one stone on the other, because you did not
recognize that the time of God's coming was here.'”
I want you to take a journey with me today to the largest fellowship festival
that the world had ever seen in biblical times. It is the Jewish festival of
Passover. Many people are not aware that between the first book in the Bible
and the second book in the Bible is a period of close to 400 years. Now, you
think about it a moment, that is as many years as they have been a United
States. There has been a 500 year difference between Genesis and Exodus. When
you come and read the book of Genesis, at the end, the Jewish people as they
later were called, came to Egypt because they were dying of starvation. The
group was small. But 400 years passed, and now there are as many as a million
and a half of these people. And they had been slaves to the Egyptians for now
300 years, at least. They prayed to God and asked that God would deliver them.
And what God did was He said you slay and sacrifice to me an animal. Take the
blood and if you believe what I can do, take the blood and just put it over the
door post. And when the angel comes that night and if He sees the blood on the
door post, he will pass over you.
And in their celebration of the 4th of July and Thanksgiving, they put together
the feast of the Passover that they did once a year, and it was here that people
came from all around the world to celebrate Passover.
Now, Hollywood cannot do it justice and so I can't, but think for a moment now
of all outside the City of Jerusalem people from all over the world have gotten
together. People have been able to say that at this time there were probably
about 50,000 people who lived in Jerusalem. And they said that when people
would come to the feast of the Passover, for every ten people they would
sacrifice a lamb. That's wonderful to know that the Jewish people through the
years have kept such wonderful records.
And in about the time that Jesus came and Jesus died, they sacrificed the lamb
for every ten people, and it was 250,000. Which meant that there were about two
and a half million people that had all gathered together at Jerusalem.
Now, you will understand it better if I tell you that there were probably more
people in Jerusalem at that time than in any other place on the face of the
earth. We sometimes forget that it was not until 1850 that we had the first
billion people on the face of the earth. Until then, the earth was very small
as far as population, and about one out of every thousand people that lived on
the face of the earth were all gathered at Jerusalem. Now, that is the reason
that when you understand that, that Jesus came at that time to celebrate
Passover and to present himself as the savior of the world.
Now, before Jesus had often performed miracles and He would say now don't tell
anybody. He would do things and He would say now don't tell them that I did
it. But here, with more people probably on the face of the earth than anywhere
else, Jesus comes to announce that He is the Messiah.
Now, one thing that when you read this story in the book of John that is a part
of it, is it said that Lazarus was there. Lazarus, you recall, is the man that
Jesus raised from the dead. And from Jerusalem down to where he lived was about
six miles. And many people, the Bible said, came because they wanted to see
Lazarus. They wanted to see this man who was dead and now has been alive
again. Now, I don't have to tell that you that doesn't happen very often. In
fact, I need to tell you it's only happened twice in the history of the world,
somebody who was dead got up and walked away. You can imagine all of the
interest when they said Lazarus is going to be there. The crowd was bigger that
year than ever before. And so people came.
Now, there is one other thing that is not in the Bible, but will help you to
understand it even more. The Jewish people had a long history, unfortunately,
of being free and then being slaves. One of the times in which they were
slaves, there were people, a family, who said we are not going to be slaves
anymore. And the Macabean brothers led the people of Israel to throw off the
yokes of slavery and to be free. The man who was the leader of the brothers was
a young man by the name of Judas and his last name, Macabias. If you have
orthodox friends and you asked them who were some of your greatest heroes, you
would not be surprised if one of them said Judas. Judas Macabias, not Judas
Iscariot.
Judas
Macabias led the people to freedom for nearly 900 years. On the day when the
armies left and the Jewish people would say they are free, they looked at
Jerusalem, and coming over the hill there was a man in full military garb and
riding on a white horse, coming as the victor in his battle.
Now, when you look it up and you read years later that Jesus Christ comes riding
over the same hill in the same way as Judas Macabias, he is saying that we have
come to celebrate the freedom that we have, but there is a big difference. When
Jesus came, no white horse, no military conquest, no boasting of what we had
done. He came riding on a donkey to simply say He is the man who has come
lowly, meek of heart, come to meet the needs of the people. And so Jesus came
on this day to announce to everyone who He was and what He had come to do.
In the town that I lived in, in south Louisiana, when you would go downtown on
Main Street there was a park area. And all the time that I grew up, if you went
to that park area you would see a man who was dressed in white, carrying a
cross, claiming that he was Jesus. He was the Messiah. I can remember for
years going there and every day he was there, saying he was Messiah.
One day after I had surrendered my life to be a minister, a friend of mine and I
were down by the park and looked across and he said, “I want to ask you a
question.” He said, “You claim that you're going to go proclaim Jesus as the
Messiah. Why isn't he one? He says he's one. Jesus says He's one. How are
you ever going to decide?”
And I said, “Well, there is a difference. When you read in the Bible it gives
300 passages, promises, about the coming of the Messiah. It tells when He's
going to be born. It tells how He's going to be born. It tells where He's
going to live. It tells how He's going to die. It tells that He's going to be
resurrected from the dead.” And I said. “As soon as I can find somebody who
claims to be the Messiah, but has never fulfilled the 300 promises, you know
pretty quick that's not Him.”
It's not just choose whoever you will. The reason that we are gathered together
to worship Jesus Christ as the Messiah is that He has fulfilled out 300 promises
that are recorded in the Bible.
Somebody said that the odds of that happening is like you taking quarters and
covering the State of Texas, and one of them with an X, and ask somebody to go
find it. And He found it.
Jesus Christ fulfilled all of what the Bible had said up to that time. And the
reason that we have come to celebrate Him is because He is who He said He was on
that day -- He was the Messiah.
People cut down limbs as they did when Judas Macabias came. He is the one who
came riding on a donkey. That is in the book of Zachariah. He came and the
people shouted, and that's the last chapters of the book of Psalms, all of them,
to indicate that Jesus had come.
Now, you would think that this would end on a high note, but it didn't. The
Bible said Jesus came over the hill and saw the city and He cried. Now, in the
Greek language, there are two words for crying. One is just kind of a tear in
your eye. The other is that you just get broken down. You just can't control
your emotions. The passage of scripture that is used here is the latter. It is
Jesus literally broke down and started crying. And the reason He cried is
because He knew what was going to happen. They're yelling today “Hosanna,
Hosanna.” Friday, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
He understands what's going to happen to Him and He understands what is going to
happen to the Israelite capital and He understands what is getting ready to
happen.
Again, He said everything that's here is going to be torn down and your children
will be killed. After Jesus died, it was 37 years later the Jewish people
decided this time they wanted to be free again, but this time it was the
Romans. They began to rebel against the Romans, and Caesar in Rome said they
have rebelled enough and given me enough trouble. He found his greatest
general, Titus. He found his best Army, the 10th legion. They came all the way
around the Mediterranean, and Titus and his troops began to March towards
Jerusalem.
They didn't attack, they just put a ring of soldiers around and waited for
everybody to starve to death. After about a year, he said that's probably it.
He raised the Roman sword. The ladders went against the wall and the Roman
elite went over. And what they found cannot even be told in a company like
this. He said it's not enough to kill as many as we can, we're going to destroy
them so they won't stay here. They literally fulfilled what Jesus said. They
set as their goal to take every stone and put a stone on top of a stone.
And that helps you to understand, many of you who have been to Israel, when you
come and began to ask what this is, and they look down and say this is what that
means, they just tore it all down. There is nothing left anymore. In fact,
they went down to the Dead Sea, or the salt sea as it's called, six miles away,
got the old salty water, brought it back, poured it all over so nothing will
ever grow here again. Their thought was to wipe Israel and Jerusalem off the
face of the earth. It was almost like a report telling you what was going to
happen.
Jesus is not a glib option. Well, if you don't accept Him it really doesn't
make much difference. I'm tired of people saying it's so important. You and I
need to understand that as individuals, as families, and as a nation, when you
turn down Jesus the consequences are horrific.
When you see in our generation young people walking around with guns, taking
away other college students, when you think about people who are dead because
people were driving when they are drunk, you're thinking that -- my, I could
tell you about the newspaper this morning and if you and I don't cry then you
and I have lost the capacity. To turn down Jesus is horrific in its
consequences.
There is a story of a young man by the name of Perot who was classified as
perhaps one of the great actors in the world. And so in London one night they
asked him to take the biggest auditorium they could find and let him do his
act. People were there from everywhere to watch him and to listen to him. And
while he was doing one of his skits, they motioned him over to the side and he
said, “Listen, we have got a real problem. The place is on fire. Will you go
out and tell people not to panic, that we have got it under control, just will
you get up now and walk out, the building's on fire.”
Perot came back. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I've got bad news. The
building is on fire. Now, don't get excited, just if everybody will get up and
move to the nearest door.” The story says everyone began to look at each other
and said isn't that the most wonderful thing you've ever seen? I mean, who
could tell us that any better than that? Nobody moved.
So he got up again and he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not part of the
act. This is the truth! Get up and get out!”
The response of the people was that they all stood up and began to clap. Said
they never heard anyone who could say anything so wonderfully as he did.
At the end of the story, this is what the author wrote. This is the way the
world will end. The clapping of hands by those people who take it as a joke.
I did not come today because I didn't have anything else to do. I came today
because Palm Sunday drives us to our knees. And I have come to tell you that
when Jesus says when you turn me down the consequences are horrific – those are
not the words of a preacher, it is the truth of Jesus. And if you turn Him
down, the opposite is worse than you can imagine.
You need to come to Jesus. People have prayed for you, people have tried to
help. And I've come to tell you today you really do need to come.
One of the most famous ministers in American history is a man called R.G. Lee.
He was Pastor for many years at the First Baptist Church in New Orleans. Then
He went to be Pastor in Memphis. He had a famous sermon called “Payday
Someday.” It tells the story of one of the men in the Bible, Ahab, who took a
vineyard from a man and didn't pay him back. The prophet came and said you need
to pay him back or the consequences are terrible. He didn't pay him back and he
was killed.
Dr. Lee's sermon is about payday someday. The last I heard before He died, he
had preached the sermon 972 times. It took about an hour and a half. It was a
wonderful experience. I sat one day in a big auditorium and he talked about
payday someday. He told a story that when he was in New Orleans he picked up
the phone after he had preached it again in New Orleans, and a man on the other
end said this is the king of the Kangaroo Court. I'd like for you to come see
me. He went. He asked where he was. He was at the charity hospital in New
Orleans. Went up on the 7th floor, there were two young men there. One man
raised his hand. “I'm who you're looking for. I'm the king of the Kangaroo
Court.”
He said, “I know what you're wondering. I'm the boss of the biggest gang in New
Orleans. And I want to tell you that young boy had a radio, and I tried to get
over there a couple times to cut it off but he wanted to listen. He listened.
And you said that if you disobey and don't believe, there is a payday some
day.” He said, “I want to tell you from a fellow on the other side of the
track, the devil does pay, but he always does pay with counterfeit money.”
Some of you are giving your life to that which is worth nothing. And the very
God who made you, who died for you, who rose again for you is the God who wants
to reach out and make you all that you can be, not that you will just be
spending your life with counterfeit money.
There are people in this room today who need to give your heart and life to
Christ. You've been thinking about it, wondering about it. But today you say
I'm going to come. Jesus rides over hill. I wanted to ask you today -- is He
going to cry when He sees you? Or is He going to rejoice and say He has won?
He's going to be all that I dreamed for Him to be.
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