God's Appointed Day
by Dr. John Barnett

Tensions were the highest anyone had ever known. People everywhere were talking about Lazarus who was dead and now he is alive, Bartimaeus who had been a blind fixture by the roadside as predictably as the morning. And now he could see and was he ever sure how he regained his sight. And then there we the crowds who had witnessed miraculous feedings and healings . . . Well it is Sunday, 10th of Nissan in AD30, Jesus Christ is leaving a small village 2 miles outside Jerusalem called Bethany.

His departure is precisely what had been predicted 1,500 years before by Moses (our Passover Lamb who had to enter on the 10th of Nissan). The way He would come was exactly stated 500 years before by Zechariah (our King riding on a colt). Both stated how He would come: as a Lamb and as a King! You see God's Plan is PERFECT!

Let's read the Palm Sunday Triumphal Entry of Jesus the Lamb that was to be slain at God's precise moment in time, Mark 11:1-10.

The arrival of Jesus on the 10th of Nissan in AD30 was one of the greatest moments in all of history. Jesus hit Jerusalem with pinpoint accuracy. Jesus came on the very day and hour God had appointed for His presentation to the Nation and the World as God's Passover Lamb. It was an exact fulfillment of a precise prophecy. And with divine accuracy and incredible timing, Jesus came on Palm Sunday the week before Resurrection Morning. If you will note the amazing accuracy of God's Perfect Plan for the arrival of Jesus, there are three personal applications we can make for our own lives. What are they?

• God's Perfect Plan means - You are not an accident (You have Divine ORIGIN)

• God's Perfect Plan means - Your life is not meaningless (You have Divine PURPOSE)

• God's Perfect Plan means - Your death will not come unexpectedly (You have Divine DESTINY)

Jesus lived thirty years of relative obscurity as a boy, a carpenter with just a glimpse at age 12 going to the Temple. He then followed with those three and a half action packed years of incredible ministry. Now we are at the final week! What did Jesus want us to see in those final days? We need to weigh them because they were so important to Him that He shared them at this crucial time.

1st, THE DAY (Mark 11:1-7) What day is this in the life of Christ? John 12 tells us it was six days before the Passover that Jesus went to Lazarus, Mary and Martha's home in Bethany on Friday and Saturday. Then the next day He marches triumphantly into Jerusalem on Sunday.

This was a promised day. It was part of that irresistible countdown to the cross. What do I mean? Remember Daniel 9:24 " Seventy weeks are determined". Exactly 483 years later Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the 14th of Nissan AD30. But it is so sad to see what the people of Israel missed that day. Jesus rode in meek and mild and sitting on a donkey on the very same day the people were to select their Passover lamb and take it into their homes as Ex. 12 instructed them.

It was the day of the Lamb of God. He may have been crucified as the blood of thousands of lambs was pouring down the temple sacrificial areas and streaming down into the Kidron valley! What magnificent timing! He was Jerusalem's Lamb arriving on God's perfect Day! Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God.

2nd Next, THE DISCIPLES (11:2-6) went to prepare the Upper Room. Historian Josephus of the 1st century tells us that at that time 256,000 lambs were sacrificed for the number of pilgrims in Jerusalem. Because the Bible instructed one lamb per family and up to ten could partake. There must have been as many as two and a half million people in Jerusalem that week! They overflowed the walls, spilling out the gates, lining the hillsides with tents. There was no room in the jammed city. Just as at His birth there was no room! Through this crowd streaming into Jerusalem, the disciples entered a village and found everything exactly as Christ said. Remember His omniscience encompasses every detail of our lives! Let Him have your way, your plans, your future, your life! Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God.

3rd Next, THE DONKEY (11:7-8) waited. Remember, God had planned the way He would come, it was exactly stated 500 years before by Zechariah (our King riding on a colt). Both stated how He would come: as a Lamb and as a King!

Look at Zechariah 9:9 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He [is] just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey." (NKJV)

Imagine all the donkeys among two and a half million people in Jerusalem that week! They overflowed the roads, spilling out the gates, lining the hillsides. Through such pandemonium, the disciples entered a village and found a colt tied and quietly waiting exactly as Christ said. Remember His omniscience encompasses every detail of our lives!

Your Shiloh, your King, your Redeemer is going to come riding on a donkey. And He did and they missed it! He was such a contrast to other kings who marched to town with swords held high, cruelty filling their eyes, captives trudging in their wake. No the King of Kings comes quietly on a humble donkey. Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God.

4th Next, THE DISPLAY (11:6-10) of the crowds, they worshiped Him with coats, branches, shouting of Hosannas. It sounds so grand, it was but not to the Romans. After all the Romans were experts at parades and official public events. They called this event "the Triumphal Entry," but no Roman would have used that term.

An official "Roman Triumph" was indeed something to behold. When a Roman general came back to Rome after a complete conquest of art enemy, he was welcomed home with an elaborate official parade. In the parade he would exhibit his trophies of war and the illustrious prisoners he had captured. The victorious general rode in a golden chariot, priests burned incense in his honor, and the people shouted his name and praised him. The procession ended at the arena where the people were entertained by watching the captives fight with the wild beasts. That was a "Roman Triumph." Our Lord's "triumphal entry" was nothing like that, but it was a triumph just the same. He was God's anointed King and Savior, but this conquest would be spiritual and not military. A Roman general had to kill at least 5,000 enemy soldiers to merit a triumph; but in a few weeks the "gospel" would "conquer" some 5,000 Jews and transform their lives (Acts 4:4). Christ's "triumph" would be the victory of love over hatred, truth over error, and life over death. 1

The tombs of the Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians with the Romans show scenes of triumph with chariots crushing their foes! But He comes quietly and will be praised even if overlooked! Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God.

Fifthly, THE DEPTHS of His Sorrow (Luke 19:41) He wept. Suddenly over the excited chants of the throng Christ stops, as the city came into view a loud lament throbs from Christ as He weeps over the city. What did He weep over? The same as He does today!
- The Shallowness of their commitment
- The Blindness of their Spiritual Devotion
- Their lost opportunities. Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God.

Sixthly, THE DIRGE (Luke 19:42) He warned because Jesus 2 saw in the vision the camp of the enemy, a bank cast up round about with palisades and a rampart hugging the city closer and closer in deadly embrace. The curtain falls for a moment, and then rises again on another scene. The city is razed to the ground, not a stone is left upon another, the gory bodies of her children are scattered among the ruins. The silence and desolation of death reign supreme. The fact that this picture was literally fulfilled just three decades later, when the tenth Roman legion encamped just where Jesus was standing when He uttered these memorable words, would be sufficient evidence in itself, apart from any other, to substantiate the Messiahship of the one who uttered the prophecy.

Finally, THE DESOLATION (Luke 19:43-44). You see Palm Sunday's Hosannas faded quickly away. Christ went to the cross and Jerusalem was desolate 40 years later. Of the final destruction 3, Josephus says:

Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground, leaving only the loftiest of the towers, Phase 1, Hippicus, and Mariamne, and the portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west; the latter as an encampment for the garrison that was to remain, and the towers to indicate to posterity the nature of the city and of the strong defenses which had not yet yielded to Roman prowess. All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited. Such was the end to which the frenzy of revolutionaries brought Jerusalem, that splendid city of world-wide renown.

Jesus saw all this in prospect and wailed in grief. This was the heart of a new kind of king. Jesus' sorrow indicated his humanity, but it was also a revelation of the heart of God. Fix this in your thoughts. This is how Jesus Christ and God the Father and the blessed Holy Spirit sorrow over hearts that miss their "day" and "what would bring . . . peace" - namely, repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As your life stands right now, what does Jesus Christ see in your future? Judgment? Your towers pulled down? Desolation?

The Son of God in tears,
The wondering angels see.
Be thou astonished, O my soul,
He shed those tears for thee.

Don't miss the Perfect Plan of God. Palm Sunday shows the Majesty of God's Plan and the tragedy of man's choices. The tears of Christ measure the infinite value of your soul. Christ wept and lamented over Jerusalem, as he always weeps over the souls of the unrepentant. This is our King. Let us worship him with all that we have! How, by choosing this very day and moment to acknowledge His plan and yield to Him! And to all who come to Jesus, God graciously gives them a new heart and comes to dwell in them. Then you have the entire scope of life resolved. What is that?

God's Perfect Plan means - You are not an accident (You have Divine ORIGIN). Say that with me, "I am not an accident, I have a Divine Origin!

God's Perfect Plan means - You life is not meaningless (You have Divine PURPOSE). Say that with me, "My life is not meaningless, I have a Divine Purpose!

God's Perfect Plan means - Your death will not come unexpectedly (You have Divine DESTINY). Say that with me, "I am not going to die unexpectedly, I have a Divine Destiny!

To read the rest of this article, insert the following URL into your browser bar: http://www.dtbm.org/sermon/gods-appointed-day/

This article was excerpted from Dr. John Barnett's series, Walking With Jesus Through in the Gospel by Mark. For more resources, visit our website at www.DiscoverTheBook.org

1 Wiersbe,
2 Shepherd quoted in Pentecost, Words and Works.
3 Hughes, Mark 11

Tuesday, September 15, 2009