Today, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be departing from our study in prophecy, and we’re going to be looking at the celebration that we’re doing where we’re celebrating Resurrection Sunday in two weeks, or yeah, it’ll be two weeks from today. And I just wanted to lay the groundwork for the events that transpired before Resurrection Sunday. And so today we’re going to be looking at events that occurred about a week before the week of Passover, and some of them even a little bit before that.
We’re going to be looking at some verses out of Matthew, some out of Luke, and some out of John. And I want us to understand that what we’re seeing and experiencing in our world today is we’ve been studying prophecy, and have been looking at what Daniel has been saying about the last days and the Lord’s return, that even on Christ’s first coming, the people did not realize why he was there and what he was there about. And they didn’t even realize the fulfillment of the prophecies that had been surrounding him from the time of his birth until what would become his death as he entered into Jerusalem on Resurrection Week, the last Passover week that he celebrated with his disciples.
I want us to look at first at a verse in Matthew, because I want you to understand the closest people that were with him on the earth at this time were his disciples. They were spending time with him every day, and they had been with him for just about three years. He’d been teaching them.
They’d seen him perform all kinds of miracles. They’d seen him feed the five thousand. They’d seen him feed the four thousand, and that was just men.
So it was many more than those numbers that were given. They’d seen him cast out demons. They’d seen him heal people.
They’d seen him stand up to the false teaching of his day and speak truth. And when he taught, he taught with such authority, the Scriptures tell us. People made the comment, we’ve never heard a man teach like this before or preach like this before.
He did that because it was his words. He was the one who had given them the Scripture, and now he was there amongst them. As they’re preparing to go to Jerusalem for the Passover, their headquarters that Jesus had was in the northern portion of the Galilee region of Israel.
He spent a lot of time in the city of Capernaum. It was one of the main places that he spent time in the northern region, even though his hometown was Nazareth. But as his disciples are preparing to leave with him, Jesus makes a statement, and he talks to them about the fact of what’s going to happen.
He tells them the following verses in Matthew. And he tells them that he’s going to Jerusalem, and that when he goes there, he’s going to be arrested by the high priests. He’s going to be beaten and scourged.
Then after that, he’s going to be brought up on trial, falsely accused, convicted and crucified, and put to death. But that he’s going to rise again on the third day. And he tells them that this is going to happen.
When Peter hears it, he says, no, Lord, it can’t. And Jesus chastises Peter and says, get behind me, Satan. Then in Luke’s gospel, as they draw closer to Jerusalem, he tells them the same thing that’s going to happen in Luke chapter 18, verse 31.
31 Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. 32 For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: 33 and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
34 And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
35 And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging:
The response of the disciples is, the scriptures tell us, and they understood none of these things. This saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken. So he’s told them this twice.
Once when they’re in the northern portion, once when they’re outside, close to Jerusalem, and they don’t believe it, they don’t hear it, and they don’t understand what is about to happen. Today, there’s a lot of Christians that have the same perspective about Jesus’ second coming, and the fact that the rapture of the church could happen at any time. The Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Colossians, and then also, I mean to the Corinthians, and also wrote to the Thessalonians, viewed that the rapture could occur at any time during his lifetime.
Jesus, in chapter 24 of Matthew’s Gospel, answers the question to the disciples, after they’ve entered into Jerusalem, and are sitting on the Mount of Olives, when they ask him, when is the coming of your kingdom going to occur? And he lays out all the events that’ll transpire beforehand, and we’re seeing all of those happen in the day in which we live. Never before has it happened like this. But I want to tell you one of the sad things that you see happening, is there are a lot of people that profess to be Christians, that have the same understanding as the disciples did, when Jesus entered Jerusalem to die on the cross, to take away their sins and your and my sins the first time, they didn’t hear what he was saying, and they didn’t believe it could be happening.
I just listened this last week to an interview between a Catholic apologist and Tucker Carlson, and they were talking about how that these Christians that are Zionists, and that think that Jesus is coming back, don’t understand Scripture. And the Christians that think that Israel is a sign of the times, don’t understand Scripture. I want to tell them that they don’t understand Scripture.
And they’re like the disciples were as they entered Jerusalem, that said, no Lord, it can’t be happening. You’re not going to die. Well, this morning, I want us to take a look at three things that Jesus did, before he entered Jerusalem, before he told the disciples to go and get the fall, which we’ll study next week, which proved that he was the Messiah, and should have opened the eyes of all that were following him, that his kingdom and his first coming were not to establish a kingdom on this earth at that time, and it was not to overthrow the Roman government.
Because that’s what most people that were following Jesus believed. His own disciples, you can go back and read in the gospel, as they’re traveling down to Jerusalem, are arguing over who’s going to be greatest in the kingdom. James and John approach Jesus by themselves and ask him, Will you give the position of honor on your right hand to one of us and the position of honor on your left hand to the other in your kingdom? Jesus tells them it’s not mine to give.
Their mother comes and pleads and intercedes on their behalf for the same thing. When the rest of the disciples find out that that’s what James and John have been up to, they’re angry. And they go to Jesus and say, What right do they have to do this? And they begin to argue amongst themselves.
We just celebrated the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus was beginning to meet with his disciples in the upper room, know what they were doing when he first got there and they were meeting? And he had prepared this meal that he was going to share with them, which was going to show the reality of the new covenant that was through his blood and how that was an unconditional covenant that he was giving to them and making with them. They were sitting around that table arguing about who was going to be the greatest.
And he had to give them the example of serving them, putting a towel on them and washing their feet. Lest we complain too much about them, there are a whole lot of people today that Jesus has revealed just as openly about what we should be preparing for and looking for who don’t have any idea it’s coming and don’t want to know. But yet, they want to be great.
Well, I want us to take a look at some events that happened that show that Jesus truly was the Messiah. And the first event is when he’s entering into Jericho on the way to Jerusalem. And you find the account is given in Luke.
It’s also given in John. But there are some events that transpire in Luke’s gospel that I want to share that aren’t in John’s. And I’ll start out in Luke chapter 18, verse 35.
And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.
And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried so much the more, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
Saying, and Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him. And when he has come near, he asked him, saying, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight, and thy faith hath saved thee.
And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God, and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
The first incident that happened on the way to Jerusalem Jesus heals the blind man. Now I want you to see the way that the blind man was calling out, and I want you to see Jesus’ response.
He’s crying out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. We don’t understand the significance of that statement, because we’re not Jewish. We didn’t grow up being taught the significance of the statement, son of David.
This is a Messianic statement. This is what the blind man was crying out. He was viewing Jesus as the Messiah.
And he cries out, Jesus, thou son of David, save me. The people tell him to be quiet. What are you doing trying to disturb Jesus on his way to Jerusalem to the temple to worship? But he cries out louder, because he knows who Jesus is.
I want you to understand Jesus’ response. He not only gives him physical sight, but he also tells him, you’re saved. If you look at his response, he says, receive thy sight, thy faith hath saved thee.
The man didn’t cry out for his sight, but when Jesus asked him, he said, I want my sight. But Jesus had heard him, his cry, Jesus, thou son of David, save me. All the people that were gathering around Jesus, and it was a great multitude by this time, because they’d heard about the things Jesus had done.
They’d heard of his miracles. They’d heard of his teaching. They heard of his standing up to the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
They heard of the fact that he had done these miracles, and they were looking for a Redeemer who could save them from Rome. And the majority of them there did not comprehend why Jesus was entering into Jerusalem that first time to go to the cross. But this blind man did.
Sometimes we look at people that have authority, that have positions that would say that they have all the answers and the right perspective, and they don’t know anything. I gave you that example of a Catholic apologist and Tucker Carlson. They don’t have a clue.
They were talking about the fact that God is done with the Jewish people, the Jewish people in Israel. Israel today isn’t Israel of the Bible, and God was done with them years ago. Yet you look at Scripture, and if you look at the Bible, you’ll understand he is not done with them until he’s done with them.
And when he’s done with them is when Jesus will return a second time to save them and redeem those who will look upon him as the one that they pierced and rejected. This was a miracle that the Messiah could only do. There had been other men who had other prophets who’d been used of God to heal.
You find some of them in the Old Testament. But there’s no one that has the authority to say you are saved by your faith except God. And those that were around and listening should have heard what Jesus said to the man, and they should have known this was a sign that this truly is the Messiah.
It is God come in the flesh. It is the one that is spoken of where Emmanuel, God will be and dwell amongst us, and he shall be here. Jesus made that perfectly clear as he interacted with this blind man.
The second thing I want us to see is something that probably doesn’t get preached on a lot anymore. But if you grew up in a Bible-believing church and you heard about Zacchaeus, we used to have a song that we learned about one, there was a man by the name of Zacchaeus, and he climbed up in a tree. Jesus encounters Zacchaeus.
And there’s an interesting thing in all of these interactions. It’s people that interact with Christ that the crowd doesn’t want Jesus to see. If you read beginning at verse 1 of chapter 19,
Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was a chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
This tells you two things about Zacchaeus. He was a tax collector, and he’d gotten very wealthy collecting taxes. That is why the tax collectors were looked down upon by the people, the Jewish people, because they viewed them as Rome’s tool to take their money, and they viewed them, even though they may be Jewish, as being traitors.
That was Zacchaeus. He had lined his own pockets because Rome allowed the tax collectors to do that. They were enabled for their salary to keep part of the money that they collected.
The more they collected, the more they got. And so it was to their advantage to really do their job really well. And evidently Zacchaeus had, because he was very wealthy.
It says right there in the scripture. He was a wealthy man. Well, there are some other things it tells us about this man.
It says, and he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press. That means the crowd that was around them. He couldn’t see them because of the crowd.
And because he was of little stature, he was short. And if you can imagine, the crowd was growing the closer Jesus got to Jerusalem. He’s picking up people along the way, because the people are all heading to Jerusalem for the Passover if they’re Jewish.
And they’ve heard about Jesus. And so they just, they want to walk with Jesus. What miracles is he going to do? What things is he going to teach? Zacchaeus doesn’t really know that much about Jesus other than he’s heard something about him.
But he wants to see what’s this all about. But if you can imagine, he’s probably about this tall. And there’s people all around that are a lot taller than him.
And the crowd is growing. And he can’t see. Verse four, And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him.
For it was to pass that way. So he, if you understand what he did, he ran ahead on the road, climbed up a tree that was in front of him. It was in front of where Jesus was going, so that he could see who Jesus was.
Because he’d never seen him. And he didn’t evidently know a lot about him other than some of the things he heard. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down.
For today I must abide at thy house. Wow. Tax collector.
A tax collector who didn’t even know who Jesus was. A tax collector who couldn’t even see above the crowd. And Jesus is telling him, make haste, come down, for I’m going to your house, Zacchaeus.
And it’s today. I want you to understand, sometimes God knows the desires of our heart, even though we are still caught up in the sin of our life. And by the desires of our heart, it’s to know who Jesus is.
You realize right now in the world, there’s a whole bunch of Zacchaeuses. People who really have never had the opportunity to see Jesus. Never had the opportunity to sit down and listen to his words.
Never had the opportunity to be introduced to him properly. But they know their lives are hopeless and that there is no point in the direction they’re going. And they want deliverance, and they want to believe that God is real and that his son had come, and they want to know him.
You realize that’s happening in a lot of Islamic countries today. Right now, there’s a tremendous amount of people getting saved in Iran. During war, during the fact that the Ayatollahs and the Islamic authorities are doing everything they can to hang on to their power, and part of it is anybody who would stand up and against what they believe takes a chance of being killed.
They’re already thinking that it’s literally thousands of people have been killed because they simply protested and wanted their freedom. So how could God save people in the midst of something like that? The U.S. and Israel are bombing all the military sites and there’s bombs going off all over Tehran where there’s military and political leadership sites that there are people coming to know Jesus. Because Jesus is saying, I see you, I hear you, and I’m coming to your house today.
The Lord is doing amazing things in some of those nations where you can’t even get a Bible. People cry out and say, Jesus, if you’re real, God, if you’re real, reveal yourself. And He does things that don’t happen here, but you can go to a local bookstore and you can still buy a Bible.
They can’t do that in Tehran. So what does Jesus do when he goes to Zacchaeus’ house? And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. And when he saw it, they all murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner? Jesus is going to the house of a sinner? Look at all the people that want to have fellowship with Jesus, but they don’t know why Jesus is entering Jerusalem. For them as well, they are sinners too.
And this sinner, Zacchaeus, wants to know who Jesus is. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto him, Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I will give the poor, and I have taken anything from any man by false accusation. I restore him for full.
Now if you’ve read the other portions of Scripture, you’ll read of another man who approached Jesus. Zacchaeus hasn’t even asked a question. What am I to do to be saved? But he’s been brought under conviction by the presence of Christ about the sin that he’s got in his life, and he’s made money as God.
And he’s attained it through false pretenses. And so he says, I will give to those that don’t have, and I will restore to those that I’ve stolen from four times. Another portion of Scripture, the rich young ruler came and approached Jesus, and he asked Jesus, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus said, you must obey all the commandments.
And he said, I’ve done so from my youth. Well, the first thing he did is he just got done lying. So he didn’t.
But that’s what he told Jesus. Well, I’ve done it from my youth. I’ve obeyed them all from my youth.
So what else must I do? And Jesus said, take all of your riches and sell it and give it to the poor and come follow me. Because Jesus knew where the man’s heart was. His heart was the same place that Zacchaeus’ heart had been, and that was in riches.
And what it says about the rich young ruler, it says that he, you can just see his countenance. As you read the Scripture, you can see him go. And he walks away.
He can’t do it. Money means too much to him. It’s his God.
And for him to give it all up and have faith to follow Jesus, he can’t do it. Zacchaeus comes running to Jesus and says, I give it all up. I don’t need it.
I want you. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house. For as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Zacchaeus was a Jew. Jesus said he came to the Jews first and then the Gentiles. And he came to find the sheep.
He gave the example of the shepherd who had a hundred sheep. And one of them gets lost. And he said the shepherd will leave the ninety-nine and go to discover the lost.
And he will seek until he finds the lost. And when he finds it, he’s filled with joy because he has found the lost. And he brings him back into the fold.
He’s telling Zacchaeus, Salvation is yours. Faith has come to your heart today. The same faith that Abraham redeemed him is now Zacchaeus’ faith in God, the one who can give us the authority to have our sins forgiven and our lives to be transformed and make new creatures in Christ.
The second incident that should have revealed to everyone that was around there who Jesus was. He wasn’t just a prophet. He wasn’t just the one who had come to establish a kingdom on earth.
He was God come in the flesh to redeem men and to find those who were lost and save them from their sin. But he gives one more example that’s even more startling. And this is one that even the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Herodians don’t know what to do with.
And you find this in John’s Gospel. In John’s Gospel chapter 11, as Jesus draws close to Jerusalem, there’s a town that’s two miles from Jerusalem. It’s called Bethany.
In Bethany, there was two sisters and a brother that were very close to Jesus. He’d spent time with them. They loved him.
Whenever he got close to Jerusalem, they wanted him at their house. And it’s Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. Now Jesus is still a couple days away from getting to Bethany.
Jericho is a ways away from Jerusalem. And he’s taking his time. He’s not hurrying.
Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and washed his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Before his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. So this is the third major thing that Jesus is going to do that’s recorded in the Scriptures on his way to Jerusalem. And he said, This is done for the glory of God and that the Son of God, who is he, Jesus, may be glorified.
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. So he still hangs out even when he hears that Lazarus is sick and he’s still got some distance to go to get there once they start on their way Verse 7, Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again.
And his disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? And Jesus answered, Are they not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, and he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him. These things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of his sleep.
Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. They’re thinking Jesus is talking about a physical sleep where Lazarus is just laying down resting and he’s going to, well, he’ll just wake up. Why do you need to go and wake him up? Why do we even want to get close to Jerusalem? Is really what they’re saying.
And again, Jesus already told them more than once why he needs to go to Jerusalem during this Passover. Even though he’d always gone to the Passover. But this is a special one, because he’s going to be the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.
That’s going to be sacrificed at this Passover. But they still aren’t getting it. And they’re trying to say, why do you have to go? Then said, How be it Jesus stake of his death? But they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest in sleep.
Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there. To the intent ye may believe, nevertheless, let us go unto him.
Now I want you to see what Jesus tells his disciples. I’m glad that I wasn’t there. Why? Because if he’d been there, if you notice whenever Jesus is around anybody that’s sick or dying, they don’t die and their sickness is healed.
If he’d been there when Lazarus was dying or sick and maybe had just died, there wouldn’t have been any big deal. Because, well, that’s just what Jesus does. But he says, there’s going to be something that is totally different about this.
And I’m glad that we weren’t there. Now he goes on and he says, Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him. Thomas has a great attitude.
He’s also the one that when all the disciples saw Jesus rise from the dead and he appeared to them and Thomas wasn’t there, Thomas said what? I’ll believe it when I can put my hands in the holes in his hands and I can thrust my hand into his side. Then I’ll believe he’s raised from the dead and Jesus appears and Thomas is kind of on his face before Jesus. But this is simply because they were disciples and spent three years with them.
They still had to come to the realization of what his purpose was to save them as well as everybody else. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. What’s the significance of that? Well, the Jewish people, if you died, they believed that after four days you’re really dead.
They believed that if you weren’t in the grave four days, maybe you would just be really, really sick and people couldn’t tell you or thought you were dead, but you really weren’t dead. But if after four days you were dead and after four days they wrapped him in spices when they placed him in the grave. That’s what they did with Lazarus, what they did with Jesus, what they did with everybody because they begin to stink especially if it’s a warm time of the year in the Middle East.
You can imagine a body would decompose rather quickly and it would begin to stink. So you’re going to hear some of that. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem about fifteen furlongs off, that’s two miles, and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.
Then Martha, as soon as she had heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary sat still in the house and then said, Martha, unto Jesus Lord, if thou hast been here, my brother had not died, but I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day.
She was a believer and believed that in the last day the believers would rise unto life, unto eternal life, and those who were unbelievers would rise unto death. She believed in the resurrection. And Jesus said unto her, Now I want you to see this.
I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Believest thou this? She said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister, and saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. And soon she heard that he rose quickly and came unto him.
Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met him. The Jews which were with her in the house and comforted her, and then saw Mary that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her saying, She goeth to the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come to Jesus, where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet saying unto him, Lord, if thou hast been here, my brother had not died.
Same thing that Martha said. And when Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping, which came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. Now I want you to understand something.
Does Jesus like death? No. Does Jesus want anyone to go to hell? The answer is no. He’s weeping in his spirit, and later he’s going to weep externally with real tears because Lazarus physically died even though he was a believer.
God never intended death for man. We chose it. And this is evident to all those that are looking at Jesus.
And he said, Where have you laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him.
And some of them said, Could not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused that even this man should not have died? Now remember they’re referring, many of them probably came and had heard what Jesus had already done at Jericho, opened the eyes of the blind, and he said that man was saved. He said that Zacchaeus was saved. Now, let’s go down to verse 39.
Verse 38 to start there.
Jesus therefore again, groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. And Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he has been in the dead for four days.
There’s no hope. It’s one thing when you go in and you’ve got a little girl up in Capernaum, and she just died a few hours or minutes or whatever before, to raise her from the dead. He’s really dead. There’s no raising this guy.
He stinks. Jesus said unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound head and foot in grave clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. And Jesus saith unto him, Loose him, and let him go.
The third miracle that Jesus does on the way to Jerusalem for the Passover. This is something the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the high priests, they don’t know what to do with. Later on you’ll read that they put out a hit on Lazarus, as well as Jesus.
They said, we’ve got to get rid of Lazarus. He’s walking proof that this guy is who he says he is. Only God has the power over life and death.
And Jesus just proved to all those around, they admitted, he’s really dead. And he rose from the dead. Why is it important that Jesus do this before he enters into Jerusalem? Well, next Sunday we’re going to see what the people think.
Just like there’s a whole bunch of people that aren’t looking for the second coming of Christ and not looking for the rapture, yet they claim the name of Christ. There’s a whole bunch of Jewish people that claim to be the sons and daughters of Abraham that really weren’t looking for the Messiah to come and take away their sin and die on the cross. And didn’t understand it.
And Jesus wanted to show them and reveal to them that he really is that man. He did things that only the Messiah would be able to do. And he did it right before he went to the cross.
May you and I understand that Jesus is who he says he was and he redeemed us from our sins at that cross 2,000 years ago when he paid the penalty for our sin. And as Paul tells us in Corinthians chapter 15, he was crucified according to the Scriptures, buried according to the Scriptures, and rose again from the dead according to the Scriptures that you and I can have eternal life. Let’s just close in prayer.
Father, I pray that you just help us to understand and realize that there is evidence for the reality of the fact that Jesus is who he says he was. He fulfilled all of the prophecies given by the prophets about his first coming. Lord, help us to realize as we look the next two Sundays, his entry into Jerusalem and his death and resurrection on the cross, the significance of that for all of history.
And Lord, that your word has been fulfilled as given to Adam and Eve way back at creation when they first sinned. And you said that you would send the seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head. Jesus is that seed.
Lord, go with us now and help us to bring honor and glory to your name. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.