As Palm Sunday and Easter approach, we need to understand what happened. The first thing we need to know is that Jesus knew exactly what was about to happen and why, and He knew it earlier than most know.
To get the big picture, we need to return to the events that created the SET UP.
In one sense, Jesus’s earth suit was in imminent danger from the day it was created. Remember that Gabriel ordered Joseph to flee Israel and go to Egypt when Jesus was a child because the blood thirsty Herod the King had learned about him and was out to kill Him. After Herod died, Joseph brought his family to Nazareth in Galilee to live, and they lived in peace.
When Jesus was thirty years old and had personally experienced what it was to be human in every respect, and had been tempted at all points yet did not sin, it was time to begin His ministry, which sealed His fate.
The very instant when the Holy Spirit descended on Him while He was being ritually baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus became the Christ, the anointed one, a role He held for only the three years of His ministry. When Jesus returned to His throne after the ascension, He was no longer the Christ; He became the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which is why Christ is not an appropriate name for Him.
The Pharisees, High Priests, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, and the religious rulers had suppressed, repressed, and oppressed their flock, God’s children, severely using their titles to accomplish their financial goals for generations. Their falsely self-proclaimed holiness was the thumb they used to persecute them.
The teachings, miracles, signs, and wonders that Jesus performed were seriously threatening their racket. Oddly, they knew from these that Jesus was God in the flesh.
Yet so strong was the attraction of their wicked power that instead of acknowledging His deity, begging Him for mercy and forgiveness, giving up their power, and following and praising Him, they chose to set up several traps for Him to gain the evidence they needed to destroy Him legally.
Jesus knew exactly what they planned. Yet because of His eternal, unconditional, incomprehensible love for you and me, He willfully walked into their trap.
THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMELS BACK.
The beginning of the end is recorded by John the disciple in the eleventh chapter of his first Gospel.
It happened when His dear friends, Mary and Martha, sent a messenger to Jesus to report that their brother, who was also dear to Him, was sick and dying.
Jesus sent the messenger back to them with this promise. “This sickness WILL NOT end in death, but God will be glorified by it.”
That declaration had immense importance. Jesus had just laid His death card. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It meant that God was to be glorified by the death of His earth suit.
Instead of believing Jesus and celebrating the healing of Lazarus, unbelieved the poor man to death, and blamed Jesus for death by negligence because He didn’t drop everything He was doing and rush to Him.
Jesus went to them to find that Lazarus was dead and buried. At the point He wept, which folks have been misinterpreting ever since, falsely believing that Jesus wept because He was sad because Lazarus was dead.
The reason that Jesus wept was because of the unbelief of the people closest to Him, which caused Lazarus to die. Jesus knew all along that Lazarus would live because He would raise him from the dead, which He did.
That snapped the straw. The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead and walking out of his grave spread throughout Judea. People believed in Jesus by the thousands. The report sent horror through the leaders of the Jews. Even though they knew that Jesus had brought the rich widow’s son and the daughter of Jairus, the high priest, back to life, this resurrection of Lazarus would cause an uprising that could overthrow the entire program.
If word of this spread throughout Israel, it would be the end for the higherarchy of the Jews. The dice were cast. They had to kill Him.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF GOD’S EARTH SUIT WAS AT HAND.
This coming Sunday is “Palm Sunday”. Watch for Pastor Allen’s Sunday Sermon titled “HOSANNA CAPER.” In it, we will explain the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem for the last time from a completely different perspective.
THAT IS IT, FOLKS, END OF TEACHING!
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Love, Thanks, and Blessings,
Pastor Allen
Throne of Grace
2590 Sandy Court
Marietta, Georgia 30066
