Devotion\u00a0 John 12:12-16\u00a0\u00a0 They Cried Save Us. He Did. They Killed Him.<\/p>\n
John 12:12-16<\/strong> – 12\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.\u00a013\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>They took palm branches\u00a0and went out to meet him, shouting, \u201cHosanna!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBlessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!\u201d \u00a0\u201cBlessed is the king of Israel!\u201d\u00a0 14\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: 15\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cDo not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey\u2019s colt.\u201d \u00a016\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>At first his disciples did not understand all this.\u00a0Only after Jesus was glorified\u00a0did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.<\/p>\n Psalm 118:25-26<\/strong> – 25\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Lord, save us!\u00a0 Lord, grant us success!\u00a0 26\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Blessed is he who comes\u00a0in the name of the\u00a0Lord.\u00a0 From the house of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0we bless you.<\/p>\n Zechariah 9:9<\/strong> – Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!\u00a0 Shout,\u00a0Daughter Jerusalem!\u00a0 See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.<\/p>\n Daniel 9:25<\/strong> – 25\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cKnow and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild\u00a0Jerusalem until the Anointed One,\u00a0the ruler,\u00a0comes, there will be seven \u2018sevens,\u2019 and sixty-two \u2018sevens.\u2019 It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.<\/p>\n Pause for a moment and consider the scene that is about to unfold before us.\u00a0 Picture Old Testament Jerusalem.\u00a0 Before trains, planes, automobiles, radio, television, computer, smart phones, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is a time when Israel again is under the control of a foreign power.\u00a0 This time it was Rome.\u00a0 Rome allowed them to live in their land, but understand, they were not free.\u00a0 Yet they were not hopeless, they were hoping for a Messiah, for a promised Savior.<\/p>\n Five hundred thirty-eight years before Jesus was born, the prophet Daniel wrote about the coming of the Messiah.\u00a0 He said that it would be four hundred eighty-three years from the time the command was given to rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah came to Jerusalem.\u00a0 That command, over fifty years later, was given by the powerful King of Persia, King Artaxerxes on March 14, 445 B.C.\u00a0 Four hundred eighty three days later, on April 6, A.D. 32, just as Daniel had prophesied, the Messiah to the Jews, and all the world, entered Jerusalem.\u00a0 Jesus was the Messiah who came the exact day that God had foretold, over five hundred fifty years before.\u00a0 Not only did He come on the exact day that Jesus had foretold, but He came riding a donkey, just as the prophet Zechariah prophesied over 500 years before it came true.\u00a0 Does God have timing or does God have timing (Romans 5:6<\/strong>)!\u00a0 Side note: People who claim that the Bible is just the words of men, speak ignorantly and have never studied the Word of God.\u00a0 These are only two prophecies of the many that Jesus exactly fulfilled.<\/p>\n During this time before the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jews were waiting for the Messiah.\u00a0 When Jesus came riding the donkey they waved palm branches and shouted \u201cHosanna\u201d which was a plea to save them.\u00a0 And Jesus would provide full salvation for them.\u00a0 But, like mankind today, they did not fully understand what Jesus was to accomplish by His first coming.\u00a0 You see, God is concerned about our lives here on earth, but He is firstly concerned with our eternal lives.\u00a0 Jesus said to not worry about the people who can harm us while we are here, He said to be concerned about our eternal position with God (Matthew 10:28<\/strong>).\u00a0 When Jesus came to earth, He came to restore to us the most important thing that was lost in the Garden of Eden.\u00a0 He came to restore our rightness with God.\u00a0 But the Jews did not realize their greater need.\u00a0 They could only look around and see the harsh hand of the Roman Empire upon them.\u00a0 They wanted to be free of that.\u00a0 In fact, the waving of the palm branches was actually a tradition that was started two hundred years previously.\u00a0\u00a0 When the Maccabees revolted against the evil Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes, they miraculously succeeded in driving the Persians out of Jerusalem.\u00a0 It was at this time that the people of Jerusalem had celebrated being saved from the cruel tyrant by waving palm branches.\u00a0 So, when they were waving palm branches as Jesus arrived, they were calling out to Him to save them, but not for their greatest need of spiritual salvation.\u00a0 They were crying out for their temporal need, of being free from the rule of the Romans. Here their Messiah was before them, and they were calling to Him, but they refused to know their true need of spiritual salvation.\u00a0 They thought because they were Jews that their salvation was secure because of their earthly lineage.\u00a0 So here, they called out to Jesus.\u00a0 Here they wanted Him to rescue them from Rome.\u00a0 They shouted for Him to save them.\u00a0 When He did not literally save them from Rome, they would later be shouting out for the Romans to crucify Him.\u00a0 Jesus, knowing their hearts and their spiritually lost state, must have been saddened.\u00a0 No wonder, in Matthew 23:37 <\/strong>He lamented over Jerusalem how He longed to gather them up to Himself, to save and protect them, but they were not willing. \u00a0How sad, how very sad.\u00a0 Yet we need not despair, God has a plan.\u00a0 He is not done with Israel.<\/p>\n As Jesus rode into Jerusalem the people shouted out to Him \u201c\u201cHosanna!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBlessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!\u00a0 Blessed is the king of Israel!\u201d\u201d.\u00a0 As they did, the people who would later turn in anger on Him, were fulfilling a prophecy from Psalm 118.\u00a0 It was a Psalm that was likely written about one thousand years before.\u00a0 This is yet another prophecy that was perfectly fulfilled by Jesus.<\/p>\n The disciples of Jesus did not fully understand all that was happening.\u00a0 The Word says that it was not until Jesus was glorified that they understood.\u00a0 And that is the key.\u00a0 If one truly wants to understand the Words of God, Jesus must be glorified in their hearts, their souls, their minds and will all that they are (Mark 12:30, 1 Corinthians 2:12-14<\/strong>).\u00a0 How do we glorify Jesus?\u00a0 By submitting to Him as Savior and Lord.\u00a0\u00a0 Then we spend all of our lives seeking what He would say to us through His Word and through the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 29:13<\/strong>).\u00a0 We must, as Jesus did, seek not our own desires (As the Jews did), our own will, but the will of our Father God (Luke 22:42<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Today, the cry of the believer, having received salvation, is \u201cMaranatha!\u201d\u00a0 We call out to Jesus \u201cCome Lord Jesus, come!\u201d\u00a0 Not only come, but come soon!\u00a0 Such should be the cry of all who first and most importantly in their lives, love and wait for the Lord.\u00a0 It is the same cry of believers throughout the ages.\u00a0 It is pleasing to God to teach our children these things.\u00a0 To teach all children, these things.<\/p>\n Thank You Jesus for saving me.\u00a0 I look for You Lord.\u00a0 I look for You!<\/p>\n Psalm 150:6 – <\/strong>Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n Micah 7:7 \u2013 <\/strong>But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.<\/p>\n Micah 6:8 \u2013 <\/strong>He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.\u00a0 And what does the Lord require of you?\u00a0 To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Devotion\u00a0 John 12:12-16\u00a0\u00a0 They Cried Save Us. He Did. They Killed Him. John 12:12-16 – 12\u00a0The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.\u00a013\u00a0They took palm branches\u00a0and went out to meet him, shouting, \u201cHosanna!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBlessed is he who comes in the name of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[813,1475,1447,1461,1455,319,556,1470,1473,1460,142,907,129,150,1468,1465,1477,449,1471,1469,1462,1442,7,521,46,1467,1440,1463,1420,99,125,580,100,1381,16,1449,1019,33,1441,93,101,1458,94,1448,827,1315,1450,1370,1452,1454,1459,1456,1478,102,737,1445,1474,1443,10,1457,1476,126,1174,97,1451,931,1377,1464,1446,1374,1444,1453,712,1466,874,1472],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirations","tag-afraid","tag-anointed-one","tag-antiochus-epiphanes","tag-artaxerxes","tag-automobiles","tag-bible","tag-blessed","tag-branches","tag-colt","tag-command","tag-computer","tag-consider","tag-corinthians","tag-cried","tag-crowd","tag-crucifixion","tag-daniel","tag-devotion","tag-donkey","tag-fesital","tag-foretold","tag-garden-of-eden","tag-god","tag-great","tag-hope","tag-hosanna","tag-humbly","tag-ignorantly","tag-israel","tag-jeremiah","tag-jerusalem","tag-jews","tag-john","tag-killed","tag-king","tag-lamented","tag-lord","tag-mankind","tag-maranatha","tag-mark","tag-matthew","tag-messiah","tag-micah","tag-miraculously","tag-moment","tag-palm","tag-pause","tag-persia","tag-picture","tag-planes","tag-prophet","tag-radio","tag-rebuild","tag-rejoice","tag-restore","tag-revolted","tag-righteous","tag-roman-empire","tag-romans","tag-rome","tag-ruler","tag-salvation","tag-save","tag-savior","tag-scene","tag-shouting","tag-smart-phones","tag-sstudied","tag-syrian","tag-television","tag-tradition","tag-trains","tag-victorious","tag-waved","tag-zechariah","tag-zion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}