Prophecy fulfilled on Palm Sunday

“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.” (Daniel 9:25)

  The Scripture above indicates that 69 weeks (weeks of years) after the order to rebuild the temple was commanded by the King of Persia, the Messiah would come to His people, the Jews. In his book The Handwriting on the Wall, Pastor David Jeremiah has these words to say about this prophecy that was given by the prophet Daniel: 

   “The sixty-nine weeks began with March 14^th445 B.C., when Artaxerxes’ decree went forward. We need to remember that the weeks are counted as years and each year had 360 days. Simple calculation of this time element is this: 69 weeks (of years) x 7 (days in a week)=483 x 360 (days in a year) = 173,800. Now if you take March 14, 445 B.C., when the decree to rebuild Jerusalem went forth, and add to it 173,800 days, you come to April 6, A.D. 32. According to Sir Robert Anderson in his chronology, it was on that day that Jesus Christ rode into the city in His triumphal entry.”(“The Handwriting On the Wall” by David Jeremiah, p.195)

   All four gospels describe Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on that exciting Palm Sunday! Doctor Luke describes it this way:

   “And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road. Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying; ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

   “And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’ But He answered them and said to them: ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’” (Luke 19:36-40) 

  Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies that are found in the Old Testament. This is just one more that proves that He was who He claimed to be: The Son of Man, The Son of God, the Messiah, and after next Friday; The Savior of the World!

  As He continued riding the donkey toward Jerusalem He was moved with emotion as He contemplated the fact that the majority of the Jewish nation did not recognize Him as the Messiah even though they had numerous Scriptures that He had fulfilled and even more miracles that proved He was God’s Son. Luke continues:

   “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 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. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build and embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’” (Luke 19:41-44)

    This prophecy by Jesus would be fulfilled less than forty years later when the Roman Army under Titus destroyed Jerusalem, and the Temple. The entire nation was removed from the land that God had given to them centuries earlier, and would not return in significant numbers until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

PRAY

1.    Lord, put on my heart the people you want me praying for today and throughout this week. Lord give me a heart like yours to angonize over those I know who don’t know you as Lord and Savior.

2.    Help me today to remember with excitement what it was like that day when you rode on a lowly donkey into Jerusalem just as the prophet Zechariah had predicted centuries before.

3.    Help me to be faithful today to cry out for those who are hurting because of lost loved ones and who are battling disease or spiritual warfare.

Spiritual tool box

  “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15)

     When the Lord gives us an opportunity to talk to someone about the things of God do we know the Scriptures that will help us talk to them about their eternal soul? Are we comfortable with the doctrine of sin, and how our sin has been paid in full, by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Perhaps you are familiar with the Roman Road, The Model Presentation, or Faith Evangelism. Whether you are or not, you need to have some Scripture in your hip pocket so that you can tell people what God has revealed to us through His Scripture. Here are a few that you can meditate on today and maybe even memorize so that you can talk to someone else this week.

“These things I have written unto you who believe in name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13)

   “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ” (John 3:16,17)

   “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

   “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned everyone to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

  “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe on His name.” (John 1:12)

   “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)

  “For by grace are you saved through faith; and not of yourselves it is a gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

  “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heard one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10: 9-10)

PRAY

1. Lord help me to understand and memorize what You Word says about salvation and sin and why You came into the world and died for our sins.

2. Help me to be bold enough and obedient to talk to others about You and to look for opportunities to   

speak about what You have done to save me from death and hell.

3. Fill me with Your Spirit so that I can look at others with the same compassion that You have when you look upon others You place in my life so that they might know You as I do. 

I'm with Him!

   “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

   When Miriam and I were living in the Philippines we were fortunate enough to be able to minister to some girls that were in a home for sexually abused girls. We took them to our home once a week and did crafts and memorized Scripture and just had fun with them, to show them what a Christian family could look like. We started with three but it soon grew to six as one asked for her sister to come and two others petitioned for their best friends. We had to stop at six because that was already more than our little car could handle!

  Sometimes we would take them to eat and on one occasion we were going to a hamburger place and as we were going in we couldn’t help but notice three boys that were begging near the restaurant. The security guard at the door was making sure that they did not get close enough to bother the patrons coming and going and was definitely making sure they did not enter the restaurant.

    After we had entered one of the girls asked: “Can we invite the boys outside to come and eat with us? We quickly said, “Yes, of course!’ So three of the girls immediately jumped up from the table and went outside, and I went also to make sure there was no trouble from the security guard. You should have seen the faces of those three boys as they realized that someone was inviting them into the restaurant! They stood up straight and proud and walked right past the guard with big grins on their faces!  One of the boys, as he passed by the guard, looked up at him and pointed to me as if to say,   “I ‘m with him!”

   We had a great time talking to the boys through the girls who spoke both English and Tagalog (the language of the Philippines), and they told them about Jesus and how He had transformed their lives in the home they lived in. Each boy ate half of their hamburger and fries and asked if they could take the rest home to their family. We, of course, said yes.

    After we had said goodbye and were headed back to the girls’ home, Miriam said to me: “You know, that is a great picture of when we get to heaven. We are going to show up at those Pearly Gates, and if someone asks us why we think we can get in, we just point to Jesus and say, ‘I’m with Him!’”

   Yes, Yes, and Yes! He is the One who died on a cross and paid the penalty for our sins! He is the One who arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven and sits on the right hand of God and is our Great High Priest! He is our Righteousness! He is our Kinsman Redeemer! He is our Savior and Lord! Hallelujah and Hallelujah, Amen!

  “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed thought the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)

   PRAY:

1.    Lord thank You for being such a loving and capable High Priest to all who call you Lord. 

2.    Use me today to be a reflection of Your love to everyone I come in contact with and help me always to put the needs of others over my own selfish desires.

3.    Lord, I praise You for being such a loving Father and Friend that is always looking out for my interests so that I can freely focus on the people around me that need encouragement and prayer.

Sold out soldier

 “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you…… For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:11,14)

  Major W. Ian Thomas of England was a soldier in all respects that you would think a soldier should be. He served in an infantry battalion in Belgium at the outset of World War II and took part in the evacuation at Dunkirk after the British, and French were soundly defeated by the Germans in 1940. He went on to serve with his unit in combat in France, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere during this long and bloody war. He found that the Lord Jesus was sufficient to carry him through many a difficult and arduous task during the conflict.

   Born into a middle class home he grew up in church and had a life changing experience as a 12-year old boy attending a Bible study offered by the Crusaders Union and he asked the Lord to save him. At the age of 15 he decided to give his life completely to the service of his Savior and he told God he would be a missionary. To fulfill this promise he enrolled in a college in London at the age of seventeen to become a doctor so that he could go and serve in Africa. 

  At college he became very active as a leader in Inter-Varsity Fellowship and spent every spare moment he could when he was not studying to be in a whirlwind of activity for the next two years. By the young age of 19 he was already burned out and was in a state of complete exhaustion spiritually. He went to the Lord in prayer one night and after hours of crying out and reading Scripture here is what Major Thomas says God told him:

   “It just came from every area of God’s Word, and very kindly and very lovingly the Lord seemed to make it plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: ‘You see, for seven years, with the utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through you. I have been there the whole time. All the things you have been pleading for, all the things for which you have been asking, have been yours since the day seven years ago, at your request and invitation, that I came into your heart…: but you see, although you have given mutual assent to the truth that I have been in your heart, and have accepted it as theory, you have lived totally ignoring the fact. You have been busy trying to do for Me all that only I can do through you.’ (They Found the Secret by F. Raymond Edmond, pp167-168)

    That night Ian Thomas says that he discovered the secret of the adventurous life. “He said: With nothing to support the theory and without the testimony of any other known Christian to the facts, I simply said to the Lord Jesus Christ that night, ‘Well, it is that or nothing! If this is true, then I am going to thank Thee for it in sheer cold-blooded faith, with no other evidence to support it, and nothing but a history of failure behind me! I am going to thank Thee that if Thou art my life, and this is true, then Thou art my victory; Thou art my strength, Thou art my power, Thou art my future! Thou art the One Who is going to go out now, clothed in me to do all that I so hopelessly have been trying to do in the past seven years!’ Then I went to sleep!

   “I got up the next morning to an entirely different Christian life, but I want to emphasize this: I had not received one iota more than I had already had for seven years! I had had the Lord Jesus, equal to all my need in whom I had been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things, for the whole of those seven years; but I stepped out on my way to the university that morning with a new song in my heart. I was saying, ‘Lord Jesus I thank Thee for the first time in my life, this is Thy day! I no longer have the burden of running my own life. At last I have a governor capable of governing!’” (Ibid, p171) 

    As he walked to class he thought about the boys Sunday School class he was to teach the next Sunday. “I said, ‘Well Lord, thou art going to speak to that boys class isn’t wonderful? Yesterday I thought I was going to, but Thou art going to now! I thank Thee dear Lord , for the boys that thou are going to save.’” (Ibid, pp. 171-172)

   That Sunday 90 boys showed up for his class. He invited any to come back in the afternoon if they would like to be saved after he had spoken very simply about the Lord Jesus Christ. 30 boys came back! It did not just happen once, God came through day after day after day! It seemed that every person he bumped into that week wanted to know about Jesus! He had been bumping into all the wrong people for 7 years. More were saved in next weeks Sunday School class also and he became a new man being used by God because he had finally learned to abide in Christ and let Him do all the work!

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

PRAY

1.    Dear precious Jesus, thank You that You are the One who does it all. My job is just to abide in You and be obedient to go where You want me to go and do what You want me to do.

2.    Lord help me this day to remember first thing in the morning that this day belongs to You and my job is to allow you to use me for Your agenda.

Thank you Jesus for being my branch and keep me attached to you throughout this day and the next and the next so that Your name will be glorified and others will see that I belong to You.

Have you confessed?

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)

  I know that you probably have read or heard these words preached on numerous occasions. If not, then I definitely encourage you to read on. But even if you have heard this Scripture before, but have never really acted on it, then now would be a really great time! Paul, in this letter to the church in Rome, lays the cornerstone of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, a disciple. But what exactly is Paul trying to tell us here?

   “In the Bible confession and testimony are put in a prominent place, and the test of a man’s moral caliber is the ‘say so.’ ‘Heart’ means all that is meant by ‘me.’ If I say with myself what I believe and confess it with my mouth, I am lifted into the domain of that thing. This is always the price of spiritual emancipation. If a child is to be taken out his sulky mood he has to go across the disinclination of his reserve and say something; and this is true of all moral and spiritual life. If I will not confess with my mouth what I believe in my heart, that particular phase of believing will never be mine actually. Assurance of faith is never gained by reserve but only by abandonment. In the matter of human love it is a great emancipation to have it expressed; there may be intuitions of love, but the realization of it is not ours until it is expressed. Morally and spiritually we live, as it were, in sections, and the door from one section to another is by means of words, and until we say the right words the door will not open. The right word is always based on the killing of the disinclination which belongs to a lower section (baser human nature).” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost Devotional Bible, p. 755)

  “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the LORD shall be saved,’” (Romans 10: 11-13)

  I think the most important word in the commentary by Mr. Chambers above is this one: abandonment. Have you abandoned all that you thought important in this world to follow the only One who has the spiritual key to this life and key to eternal life? His name is Jesus! 

He is the One who died on that rugged cross and rose again on the third day to save us from our sins. His is the One we need to confess daily and proclaim to a lost and dying world so that they too can be saved and serve the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

PRAY

1.    Lord I confess that You are who You claim to be. You are the Alpha and Omega, You are my Savior, and my God. You are the Bright and Morning Star, the Son of God, and You are coming again to take us to the place You have prepared for us to spend eternity with You.

2.    Lord, help me this day to live it for You and to be obedient to the example You have given to me in Your Word.

3.    Holy Spirit, fill me now that I might reflect the love of God and Jesus in every thing I think, and in everything I say and do in the presence of those You put in my path today. 

What is your priority?

   “Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said: ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ And He laid His hands on them and departed from there.” (Matthew 19:13-15)

   If you are a student of British history you have probably heard of one of the greatest Prime Ministers of all time in Great Britain. His name was William Gladstone and during the 19^thcentury he was Prime Minister of Great Britain four different times (a feat which has not been repeated since) and was involved in politics for a total of 60 years. He was a man of integrity and courage and did his part to keep Britain the world power that it was in that century. He was popular with the working-class of England and was nicknamed “The People’s William” or sometimes the “Grand Old Man.”

   I was listening to Pastor John MacArthur on the radio the other day and learned something much more important about him than his political accomplishments: he was a man who had his priorities straight! One night before he was to make a very important speech to Parliament, he was working on his speech at two in the morning when someone knocked on his door. The housekeeper answered the door and there was a lady from the tenements nearby who told the housekeeper that her son was dying. She had heard that the Prime Minister would have something encouraging to say to her son and would he be willing to come and see her son? Mr. Gladstone stopped what he was doing and went with the lady and spent from 2am to 6am with the young man. During the length of time Mr. Gladstone was there he told the young man about what Jesus had done for all of us and led him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!

  When he returned to his home he told his housekeeper that “today has been the best day of my life.” He gave his speech to Parliament that afternoon and some said it was the greatest speech he ever gave! 

   How busy is your life today? Do you have time to meet with a friend who is going through a rough spot in life or to listen to your little child who has been interrupting you while you try to relax when you came home from work? I remember once when my children were young and I had come home from work quite tired and had sat down in my chair to relax and read the paper. My wife came in and reminded me that I had two boys out in the back yard that were waiting for their dad to come out and play catch. My attitude wasn’t the greatest, I admit, but I went out and had a good time showing my sons that they were important to me and that I loved them more than the newspaper. 

 Who do you know that needs some time from you? Who is next door or down the street that needs a word of encouragement or needs to hear about the One who can save them from their sins? Pray about it, listen, look for the answer from Him and then go!

  “And whosoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:42)

PRAY

1.    Lord thank you that You are my master and my Lord. Thank you for loving me enough to adopt me as Your son or daughter.

2.    Help me be a blessing to someone today. Open the eyes of my heart and help me to see a child that needs someone to listen to them or an elderly neighbor who needs a shoulder to cry on and let me minister to them for You.

Fill me with Your Spirit and guide my footsteps to walk on the path You have prepared for me this day. Help me not to turn to the right or to the left but to walk straight to the place w