I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11, verses 1 to 11. And we are kicking off a three-part study of this passage tonight. You came to church on a Thursday. Look at you beautiful people. You fellow Bible nerds. Now, on Sunday, I'm not going to say to everybody who shows up on Easter, this is part three of a trilogy, and you just showed up for the third part, but you'll know it's part three. You guys will know you'll have seen the humble beginnings, all the way to the epic climax. So, tonight, we are able to do something that space and time do not always permit us to do, and that is to track down every cross reference we want to. Ladies and gentlemen, who's here for the full Bible nerd experience? Yes, I know who you are. You Thursday night communion service people, you guys speak my love language, right? So, we are going to start going through this passage, and we're going to do three different sermons on these eleven verses, and we're not going to run out of things to say. I'll tell you that, because this is the climax of the up-to-Jerusalem tour right here. Jesus is going to ride into Jerusalem. And I'm excited about the Last Supper and how he died on the cross and the empty tomb. The problem is, as we're going through Mark, we're not there yet. So, I hope you're catching on to this whole Passion Year idea. We're going to have a whole weekend where we celebrate the Last Supper. We're going to have a whole weekend that we call Good Friday. We're going to have another Easter weekend in 2026. Does that excite anybody? Okay, so, and it starts right here. This is the beginning of the last week of Jesus' life. So, everything we study from this point forward in Mark, all happens from when he comes into Jerusalem till they go to the tomb, and it's empty, just as he said. He's risen from the dead. We're going to study one week for the rest of our whole year. And out of respect for God's Word, I invite you to stand up for the public reading of Scripture. You can see that the text is printed on the handout, or you can read along in your Bible, but we're going to study this passage three times, so let's really get into it. Mark 11:1-11. Please follow along as I read.
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and grab your seat. First thing I want you to underline is “now when they drew near to Jerusalem,” first line. I want to suggest to you that this phrase has more significance than just a geographical update. I think what is happening here the phrase “drew near” is sometimes translated “at hand.” And it's used two other times in the Gospel of Mark, one is in chapter 1, verse 15, where he says, “Repent and believe in the gospel, because the Kingdom of God is at hand,” as in the kingdom of God is “drawing near.” Well now Jesus is choosing willingly at this place and this time to draw near to Jerusalem. And the other time that this phrase is used is what we just read earlier, Mark 14:42, when he says, “Rise, my betrayer is at hand,” and Judas shows up with a crowd, with swords and clubs ready to arrest Jesus. So, every time this phrase, or this Greek word about “drawing near,” or something being “at hand,” something coming this way, every time it is used, I think it has real significance. And I want you to see that when Jesus came to Jerusalem, it was a very specific place and a very specific time. And so, this is the kind of thing that we can just rush past, but there is a lot of prophecy that has led up to this moment.
Now, I think it's pretty cool that Jesus knew there would be a cult of a donkey, a new donkey that no one had ever ridden on. He knew exactly where it would be. He told the disciples to take it, and they took it. I think that's super cool. Does anybody else think that's cool? I think it's awesome. I want to go start taking stuff and say, the Lord has need of it, and see if people will let me get away with it. This sounds like an interesting idea, right? And, well, don't worry, we'll send it back immediately, right? And it works. So, but I want you to see that this idea that Jesus would be in Jerusalem, and the idea that there would be a donkey that he would ride in on, these aren't ideas that Jesus is just thinking up on the spot. There are two prophecies that I want to really dive into with you. And if you’ve flipped your handout over, you've seen these two prophecies on the back of the handout. So, surprise, we really have three texts of Scripture here on a Thursday night; there's no service after this. Hopefully you're feeling comfortable. People came and cleaned the seats. Do you feel comfortable in the clean seats? Everybody, they cleaned the carpets. We got hyped up for this, so we might as well make ourselves comfortable here this evening.
I want to invite you to turn with me to Daniel, chapter 9, and I want to set up why we're at this place at this time with one of the most compelling prophecies, really one of the most compelling chapters that I can recommend to you in the Bible is Daniel, chapter 9. And if you know anything about Daniel, he and his three friends and many others were taken away from Jerusalem to Babylon, and this is when King Nebuchadnezzar desecrated the temple, destroyed the city. This is when the day of judgment came upon God's people. And there was an exile for seventy years, and Daniel and his friends resolved in their hearts not to be defiled there with the king's delicacies in Babylon. And Daniel particularly remained firm in his faith for that entire time of exile. In fact, if you know something about Daniel, you might know that he was very committed to prayer. How many times a day would Daniel pray? He would pray three times a day, facing towards a window that was facing towards what? Jerusalem. And it says in Daniel, chapter 9, “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”
If you're taking notes, you might want to write down Jeremiah 25:12 and Jeremiah 29:10 are the two possible passages that Daniel Could have been reading in the scrolls or the books that would remind him that Jeremiah, who was the weeping prophet at the time that Jerusalem was destroyed, Jeremiah had prophesied it would be a seventy-year exile. Daniel happens to be doing his devotions from Jeremiah, is reminded of the seventy-year exile. Figures out what year it is, the first year of the reign of Darius, and thinks, oh, we're coming close to the time of seventy years. And so, inspired by reading the Scripture in Jeremiah, Daniel prays one of the most powerful prayers that have ever been prayed by a real prayer warrior, a prayer that God answered in a profound way. And so, we don't have time to go through all the awesome details of this prayer, but basically, Daniel is confessing the sins of Israel and saying that God was right to judge them. But now, according to the Word of the Lord, it's time for them to go back, and so he's asking God to do something. And here, what you need to see. Look at the end of the prayer. Look towards verse 19, the last line of Daniel's prayer. He prays, “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act.” So, this is a climax of a whole prayer that he's asking God to act and do something. He says, “Delay not,” and then look at what's motivating Daniel, “for your own sake. Oh, my God, because your city and your people are called by” what everybody? “Your name.” What did he say? What specific thing is Daniel referring to your what, everybody? Your city. See, there's an attachment that you and I don't fully understand. The city of Jerusalem becomes attached with the name of Yahweh, with the presence of God's holy dwelling among his people there in the temple. You can't say Jerusalem without thinking Yahweh lives there. And so, we might think of our church here in Huntington Beach, but we don't think that Jesus necessarily lives in this building here on Revival circle. You associated the city of Jerusalem with the presence of Yahweh.
And so, the reason that it's so important that the people go back to Jerusalem, the reason it's so important that the temple is brought back to its working order and the city is rebuilt, is not just that it would go well with God's people, but what about God's name? What about God's glory? What about what all the other nations would think about Yahweh? Jerusalem has to be the centerpiece of planet Earth because Yahweh is the one who sits on a throne and reigns over the heavens and the earth, and his name is now associated with Jerusalem. And so, look at how he describes, verse 20. Look at how Daniel describes his own prayer, “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God. Underline this or write this down if you're taking notes, “for the holy hill of my god.” Do you see how he describes it? He's confessing the sins of the people. He's making a plea to Yahweh. And what is the plea for? It's for the holy hill. It's for the place that God's name dwells, the place that is unique, out of all other capital cities, out of all other major population areas, there is no place that has ever been associated with the presence of Yahweh like Jerusalem. And so, that is the place that Daniel is praying for. So, it had to be Jerusalem where Jesus came near to and it had to be a certain time at Jerusalem, especially if you go through the Gospel of John, there's this regular phrase that keeps coming up in the Gospel of John. And Jesus says it to his mom when he turns the water into wine at the wedding of Cana. Remember what he says,? “My time has not yet” what? Come, right? And then that goes on, “My hour has not come.” They didn't get him when he went to the temple that time, because it wasn't yet his hour. His hour had not yet come.
After Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the donkey. Guess what? He starts saying, the hour has come. The time is now. So, there is something about Jesus getting on this donkey at this place at this time. And so, we can't just read into this text, like, okay, so Jesus finally got there, moving on. No, it's like there's a specific reason that Jesus came down that particular hill to go into that gate, into that part of the city of Jerusalem, and he came there on a certain day at a certain time. And it's all been foretold hundreds of years before it was ever going to happen. And it's all based on Daniel praying this prayer for the city of Jerusalem. Daniel is just praying that we could go back to Jerusalem. And when God hears Daniel's prayer, God's thinking, let me tell you what's really going to happen in Jerusalem. Daniel, you want to pray for Jerusalem, I’ve got something way better than a few of the remnant going back to a beat down city, I'll tell you what's going to happen there.
And so, the angel Gabriel shows up, and look at what it says in verse 21, “While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first he came to me in swift flight.” So, this is not Jason St Pierre kind of swift flight, right here. Okay? This is a different kind of swift flight “at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.” Can you imagine if you were reading Scripture one day and you read something in the Scripture and it inspired you. In your heart, the spirit compelled you to pray based on what you read in the scripture, and you poured your heart out in a full prayer to God, maybe the best prayer you've ever prayed. And all of a sudden, an angel showed up and said, as soon as you started praying, there was an answer, and I've come to bring you that answer. That's what happens here. He's praying that God's glory will be seen again in the holy hill of Jerusalem. And Gabriel says, let me tell you what God thinks about that Daniel. And then you get the seventy-week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, so please follow along as I read these verses. This is what the angel Gabriel says to Daniel in response to his prayer. “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”
So, this is, if you've ever heard of this before, this is like the creme de la creme of prophecy in Scripture. Okay? This is one of the hardest prophecies to get into the seventy-Weeks prophecy. So, the first thing I want to give you about this prophecy is that weeks equals sevens. Could everybody write that down? Weeks equals sevens, the Hebrew word. I can see why they translate it weeks, because when we hear week, we think of seven days. But really, in Hebrew, it doesn't mean week. It just means sevens. And they would have been used to the number sevens. They thought of a lot of things in sevens. In fact, every seventh year the Sabbath year to give the land rest. And after seven sevens, which would be forty-nine years, you would have the year of Jubilee.
So, this prophecy that I'm about to take you through is one of the most complicated prophecies that you can study in all the Bible. It's hard even for Bible scholars to understand. Our beloved commentator, Dale Ralph Davis says, if anybody tells you this prophecy is clear, they've never really read the text in Hebrew. That's what Dale Ralph Davis says about this prophecy. Sinclair Ferguson, he quotes a guy saying that this prophecy is a dismal swamp for interpretation. Okay, so I have a way that I would like to share this prophecy with you, but we Bible nerds need to approach this prophecy with a good degree of humility and not act like, well, I completely understand everything that's going on here, and those other Bible scholars just are not as smart as I am. We need to approach it here with some humility. But I can tell you with confidence that everybody agrees we're talking about sevens, and most people think we're talking about years. Four hundred and ninety years roughly. In fact, here's what's fascinating. We're looking maybe four hundred and ninety years into the future. In this prophecy, roughly, we'll get more specific, but we're also coming off the effect of a four-hundred-and-ninety-year time period. Here's what I mean by that. How long was the exile? 70 years. Why was the exile 70 years long? Do you know? Well, according to 1 Chronicles 36:21, the reason the exile is 70 years is to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths all the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill seventy years. So, guess what? They weren't perhaps honoring the Sabbath year. So every seven years, it was supposed to be a year to rest, but they weren't resting, and so they got seventy years of exile to make up for all the years that they didn't take the Sabbath year to rest. So, if there's seventy years to rest, then how many years were they not resting? Well, seventy-one out of seven would take you to a time period of roughly four hundred and ninety years. So, if you start looking for time periods of four hundred and ninety years in the history of Israel, you can find a lot of these time periods. So, roughly, we're coming off of a time period of four hundred and ninety years that led to judgment, and now we're looking ahead to the next four hundred and ninety years. Now, when do the four hundred at the seventy sevens? When do they begin? Well, look back at Daniel, chapter 9, and you've got this here on your handout, if you'll flip your handout over, you want to underline seventy weeks. And above weeks. You want to put sevens. And you want to see that the seventy weeks are specifically about the holy city of Jerusalem, something that's going to happen with Jerusalem. And then look at verse 25, “Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks.” There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, which adds up to sixty-nine weeks and then the last week? Well, the last week gets downright crazy. We'll get to that later, but you can see that there's going to be time of seven weeks, and then there's going to be sixty-two more weeks. But it all starts, underline this, from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem, so when the word goes out that we can go rebuild Jerusalem, that's the beginning of this countdown that these seventy sevens is kicking off.
So, then that leads to a lot of debate among the Bible scholars, when exactly is the going out of the word to restore Jerusalem? Because some people might take it all the way back to when Jeremiah prophesied that they would go back after seventy years. If you go to the book of Ezra, there are places in the book of Ezra that people could point out that after Daniel in the Hebrew Scriptures comes Ezra and Nehemiah. And so, some people might say, well, in here in Ezra, they talk about going back. Here in Ezra, they talk about going back, but jump with me to Nehemiah, chapter 1. This is where I would suggest to you, when I think the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. It's in Nehemiah, chapter 1 is where we'll pick it up. But really, it's in chapter 2 where the word goes out. Now what I just told you is in the Hebrew Scriptures, Nehemiah is after Daniel. In our copy of the scriptures, we got to go way back to find Nehemiah before Daniel. So, who can find Nehemiah? Raise your hand if you found it. Has anybody found Nehemiah? Because I'm struggling over here is, are you guys with me? Okay, so Nehemiah, chapter 1. Let's pick it up here, “The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev. You guys all know what the month of Chislev is, right? What you're going to notice is there's a lot of months that we're not familiar with in these Scriptures because they're not using the same calendar as us, which makes the seventy sevens prophecy extra fun, because we’ve got to use foreign calendars. And what's about to happen is going to happen in the month of Nissan. And when I hear Nissan, I think, oh, I thought it was a Toyota. I'm not thinking, maybe you say Honda. I'm not sure what you're referring to in the month of Nissan, exactly. So, this is about to get complicated. We're going to have to switch from the solar calendar to the lunar calendar, ladies and gentlemen. But stick with me, because this is a compelling story here in Nehemiah, chapter 1. “Now it happened in the month of Chislev,” which you don't know when that is. That's fine. Keep reading. “in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the citadel that Hanani, one of my brothers, he came with certain men from Judah, and I asked them, concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem, what's going on in Jerusalem? Nehemiah wants to know. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.” Look at how Nehemiah takes this news? “As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days hearing that Jerusalem is still broken down. It's like Nehemiah is mourning someone's death. Is his response this is how they equated the city of Jerusalem with the name of Yahweh. And if the walls are not rebuilt and the gates are destroyed by fire, a city without walls is like a man with no self-control, anybody can just come walking in and take over a city without walls. So, you're telling me that the city of Jerusalem, as Nehemiah gets this report has not been rebuilt. And so, look what Nehemiah does about it. This is powerful. Verse 5, “And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” And then he gives a great cliffhanger here. “Now I was cup bearer to the” who. Everybody? Turns out Nehemiah has an all-access pass to the most powerful man on the planet, a man who could send him back to Jerusalem to re build. And so, he prays to God, another compelling prayer where he's confessing the sins of Israel. He's bringing God's promise to regather them back from their judgment. And he's saying, God, you’ve got to help me right now. And so, look at chapter 2, “In the month of Nisan.” There it is. “In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2 And the king said to me, ‘Why is your face sad.’” Hey, Nehemiah, what's wrong, seeing you are not sick “’This is nothing but sadness of the heart.’ Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, ‘Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?’” What has made Nehemiah so sad, everybody? Say it with m. The city. There's an attachment that Daniel and Nehemiah and Jesus have to the city of Jerusalem that I want to suggest is perhaps a greater attachment than we have to any place in our lives, because they are associating a place with the spatial presence of God, not the spiritual presence of God, but a place where God actually dwelt. And how could that place, the place of God and his people, how could that place be broken down? How could the temple be desecrated? How could the gates be destroyed by fire. And so, guess what King Artaxerxes does in the twentieth year of his reign, in the month of Nisan everybody, guess what? He gives the word to go rebuild Jerusalem, and he gives it to Nehemiah. And if you've ever read the book of Nehemiah, do they rebuild the wall? Walls of the city of Jerusalem. Do they rebuild the whole thing? Do they rebuild the temple? In fact, how long, roughly does it take for them to rebuild the whole city of Jerusalem? You know how long I think it takes? Seven sevens. It takes that first time chunk of roughly forty-nine years.
So, some of the dates I want to share with you are by this book that I want to recommend. If you're taking notes, you could write this down. It's a super old book called The Coming Prince, by Sir Robert Anderson, and he's the guy who wrote down when this is, he said, Nisan 445 BC is roughly July 446 BC is roughly when this word goes out. And so, you take the seven sevens, the roughly forty-nine years that they were rebuilding, and then after the Jerusalem is rebuilt, you go sixty-two times seven. Okay, so if you take forty-nine, and then you take sixty-two times seven, can anybody figure it out what that is? Well, you add that to forty-nine. What are you going to get? You're going to get 483 what years? Okay, now here's the thing, the month of Nisan is a part of a different kind of calendar. I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Jewish calendar uses different months than our calendar. Who already knew this? Okay? And so that's why Easter is different all the time, because it's based on moons, because it is a lunar calendar. So, when you're making your kind of mathematical equations, trying to figure out, when do the weeks or the sevens start from, and when do they end? You can't use years like we use years, because then you're using solar years, but lunar years have less days than solar years. Did I just confuse anybody right there? Lunar years have three hundred and sixty days per year. So, you’ve really got to take four hundred and eighty-three times three hundred and sixty days. And that's going to get you your number of days that you would take from this day in Nisan that he just said this. And guess what day if you did that calculation, and you did it right, guess what day you just came up with, everybody? Mark, chapter 11, verse 1, that's the day you would come up with.
That's the mathematical equation according to the coming Prince, by Sir Robert Anderson. He's one of the first to really calculate that out. Wrote a book about it. The book, I have the tenth edition of the book. That's what you call a hit when there are ten editions of the book. And so, he explains this whole thing, how he came up with it. I've read other people. Their equation is a little bit different of the date they might use, but it leads to the same idea that if you go from this starting point when Nehemiah is told to go back and rebuild Jerusalem, if that's the actual starting point, then your finish line is When Jesus comes in on a donkey.
That's what God said to Daniel in answer to his prayer. You want to see something happen in Jerusalem? Just wait. Just wait till this day, four hundred eighty-three lunar years away from when Artaxerxes tells Nehemiah, go back and rebuild, after Nehemiah prayed that God would do something, just like Daniel prayed that God would do something. These are inspiring answers to prayer. In fact, let's get this down for the ruined city, the ruined city on your notes that should let scripture inspire prayer. We should all leave here pumped up to pray after tonight to see how Daniel reads that it's seventy years figures out that's almost up. And then he prays and whoa. Look at this prophecy he gets to when Jesus is riding in. And then Nehemiah gets the bad news that the city's broken down. He prays he has access to the guy who can send him to go rebuild the city. And in answer to the prayer, he does send him start Daniel's countdown from when Nehemiah gets sent. And guess what happens? Four hundred eighty-three solar years later, Jesus rides in when he's drawing near to Jerusalem.
So, look at how these men saw what was going on. They saw it in the Scripture. They saw it in real life. They prayed to God. They asked God to be true to his word. They asked God to act, and God unfolded a plan. And they didn't just get the walls rebuilt. They didn't just get the gates back up. They didn't just get this kind of weak version of the temple that wasn't as good as Solomon's temple. No, they got the actual Anointed One riding into town. Is this impressive to anybody else. This is amazing. How God answered their prayers was more than all they could have asked or imagined. And so that's why Jesus knows the exact day that he's going to ride in.
And then, go back to Mark 11, because it's not just the space of Jerusalem and the time that fits with the seventy-seventh prophecy. It's not just all of that. It's actually now this idea that the donkey is waiting, and it's a colt of a donkey, which means a young donkey no one's ever ridden it. It's a colt of a donkey here, the foal of a donkey. You could say it's like a baby donkey. It's never been used before, and it's just happens to be waiting at this certain place at this certain time. And so why are we riding on a donkey? What is the significance of the donkey? It's more than that, Jesus knew it would be there.
Go over to the Gospel of John, chapter 12. I want you to see how John quotes a passage here and how he talks about this donkey in John chapter 12, he says in verse 14, he doesn't tell us the cool story of sending out the two disciples and them saying, “The Lord has need of it,” and them getting away with the donkey. He just says here in John 12:14, Jesus found a young donkey, sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt.” Now look at what it says in verse 16. This is important. “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.” So, what did John just tell you? He told you it's really significant that Jesus rode in on a donkey. And the reason it's really significant is because it fulfills a prophecy all the way back in Zechariah, chapter 9, verse 9, that he quotes, but I had no clue that was happening when it actually happened. John says, so the people are shouting, Hosanna. The people are acting like a king is coming, but the fact that he's coming on this particular colt of a donkey, and the fact that he's fulfilling a particular prophecy of Scripture, John's being very honest with us, and he's saying that went right over my head, pretty sure it went over everybody else's head, but now that I'm writing it down later on, now that he's died, risen again, and I've received the Spirit, this was an amazing fulfillment of prophecy.
So, if you were there and you were shouting Hosanna, and you were laying the palm branches down, and you were throwing your cloak on the road because you were so excited that Jesus was coming into town, you didn't even get the full awesomeness of what was happening if you were there. So, this is one of those things where it's not like, oh, I guess you had to be there to really get how awesome it was. No, actually, the people like us who are not there, we're the people in position to get how awesome this really was, if the people there did not understand all that was happening, then it wasn't just written down for the people who were there. It was written down for a room full of Bible nerds on a Thursday night in 2026, okay? That you and I could understand why he rode on this donkey, and that John wants to say, if you really want to see something awesome, you’ve got to go to what the prophet Zechariah said in chapter 9, verse 9. And that's also on the back of your handout, if you want to look at it with me. In Zechariah 9:9-10 are there on the back.
And so, John's saying, this is what will help, the donkey make sense to you, all right? And so, Zechariah, he is a prophet. Some of us went through the night visions of Zechariah a few summers ago. He is a prophet after the exile back in Jerusalem. And it's about getting the temple back, going and getting the Temple rebuilt, and all of that's happening at this time of Zechariah. And it says here, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold.” Look at this. Can you see it? “Your king is coming to you. Righteous, and having salvation is he humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And then it says, “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.
So, the reason there had to be a donkey there, and no one had ever ridden on it was because Jesus had to come in on this donkey, because Zechariah said so, by the Word of the Lord, back when they were rebuilding Jerusalem, hundreds of years beforehand, they said it would be a donkey. And so that's why Jesus made sure that he came in on a donkey. And notice, what that's supposed to show us is that he is humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now you're supposed to read in this passage, and that's the reason I did verse 9 and verse 10 is verse 9 seems to be highlighting the humility. Not many kings are riding around on donkeys, right? They’ve got war horses. They’ve got chariots, right? And a lot of people, they would have been familiar with the Roman Empire. And when conquering kings rode in, in the Roman Empire, did they know how to let everybody know they were victorious and they were the conquerors? Did they have parades and displays of their pomp and their glory. So, what kind of a king comes in on a lowly, humble donkey? See, that's supposed to get your attention. Kings don't ride donkeys. Why is he doing that? But that doesn't diminish him as a king. Look at verse 10. This king doesn't even need chariots. This king doesn't even need war horses. This king doesn't even want bows anymore. We're cutting down all the bows. We don't need them, because this king is going to speak peace to the who, everybody? The nations, and his rule shall be from sea to what? This sounds like a worldwide kingdom. This sounds like this king, the one, the king who's humble, the king who's lowly, the king who comes in on an unexpected ride of a donkey. He's actually the greatest king of them all, and he doesn't need chariots or war horses or bows, because he's going to bring peace to all the nations. All the nations will be combined under his kingdom, under his rule and dominion. Because his kingdom, it will go as far as it can go, from sea to sea, from the river all the way to the ends of the earth.
So, let's get this down for our donkey. For our second point: you're supposed to “Consider the contradiction of a lowly King.” This is an oxymoron here, a lowly king, a king that rides humbly on a donkey. That's not how kings roll, but, but look at this king. This king doesn't even need a military to do his conquest. He doesn't even need the threat of war to make others bow to him. This king, he can get all the nations united together in peace. This king, He's going to rule all over the earth. So how does that work? How do you have a lowly King? This is supposed to be something that we think about, something that fascinates us, something that's endlessly interesting. Why does the king, who has all the power, put himself in such a lowly position?
Now, this idea of power yet humility has already been presented to us with this same idea of a donkey. Go back to Genesis 49, everybody. Turn all the way back to Genesis, and we'll see that Zechariah is kind of riffing on previous prophecies. And this is what you can really start to see once you see the Bible, not just as two parts, Old Testament and New Testament, but when you see the Bible actually as four parts, because you don't call it the Old Testament anymore. What do you call the Hebrew Scriptures, everybody? The law, the prophets, and the writings. And when you know that the law was written by Moses around 1400 and then David wrote some of the psalms, and Solomon, some of the writings, around 1000. And then, you know, the prophets came hundreds of years, even after them, you can now start tracking how some prophets are picking up on previous revelation and continuing to develop the concept. So, Zechariah wants you to see a king that is lowly, on a donkey, but he's the most powerful king in the whole world. We'll go to Genesis 49, starting in verse 8 here, as Jacob is blessing his twelve sons who become the twelve tribes of Israel. The most prominent and important tribe for us is Judah, because that's the one that leads to Jesus. And it says here in Genesis 49, verse 8, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub.” Now that sounds like a kingly animal right there. “From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah.”
Judah is like a lion king of the jungle. Judah is going to rule with the scepter nor “the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples,” the nations. But look at this verse 11, “Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine,” Hey, what happened to the lion? Do you see even here, you're supposed to have already heard Jacob's blessing to Judah, and you're supposed to think animal options. Would you rather go into battle with a lion? Or the colt of a donkey? Which one would you go into it with? Hmm, see, there's always been this contradiction here. He's going to reign like a lion, but he's actually doing it with a donkey's colt. What is happening here? Go to Psalm 72 and this is where you get this idea of unlimited conquest. See this? This is a prayer of David. It's for Solomon. And this is about the transfer from the king of Israel, David to his son, Solomon. And there's a lot of prayer here about what's going to happen to the king, but at some point we realize we're talking about a king beyond just Solomon. Even though Solomon built the temple and had some of a great reign in Israel and fulfilled some of this prayer, there's more to it than just what Solomon could accomplish. And look at what it says when we're praying for this King who's going to come in the tribe of Judah, in the line of David. Well, look at what it says in Psalm 72, verse 8, “May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth!” Do you realize that Zechariah in chapter nine, verse nine, he was referring back to Genesis 49 and in verse 10, he was referring back to Psalm 72 verse 8. What Zechariah is doing is a prophetic mashup where he's taking the idea of a donkey and he's mashing it up with this idea that he's going to rule from the river to the ends of the earth. That’s everywhere.
And so, this king, wow, look at what this king is going to do. Verse 12, “For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight. Long may he live. But we're not just talking about Solomon now, because look at verse 17. “May His name endure.” How long, everybody? Forever. “May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!” So, there's going to be a king who will humble himself and come in on a donkey, and he will prove to be the most powerful man who have ever lived on planet Earth. Have you thought about that a lot like it's very important for you? John is telling you I couldn't see it. I was there and I couldn't see it. Can you see who Jesus is? Can you see what Jesus is doing when he comes into Jerusalem? He's coming in like a simple man on a donkey, waving to the crowd, shouting, Hosanna. But he has actually orchestrated the entire event. He has orchestrated it down from the timeline of when it would happen to the place that it would happen to the animal that he would ride. He's actually flexing that he has all power as he comes in humble and lowly on a donkey. Can you consider the contradiction of a lowly King?
Can you see who we're here to remember? Can you realize that Jesus, even though he's going to seem so weak as he gets, just mocked? Spit on and beaten and killed. Can you realize that he was actually in control of the whole thing, and it was all happening according to his foretold plan, that in Jesus there is no contradiction between his willingness to humble himself and his having all power. That's just who Jesus is. And so, we haven't even really got to the point of these prophecies. Go back to Mark 11, and we'll get into this more tomorrow night. But what are the people shouting? They're shouting this Hebrew word. And it's very important that you know what this Hebrew word means to understand the meaning of our text in Mark 11, 1 through 11. The word is, and let's get you guys warmed up for tomorrow night, because I'm going to need your help tomorrow night. Let's hear what the word is on the count of 3. 123. okay, you're going to need to be way better than that tomorrow night. All right. The word is Hosanna. What does it mean, everybody? Save us when? Now? Okay. So, here's what we're going to see in our trilogy of studying this Palm Sunday, Mark 11, 1-11 passage, when they said, save us now. What were they thinking? Be the king, get the Romans out of here, restore the glory of Israel. When we say, save us now. What do we need to be thinking? Salvation for my soul, spiritual life, forgiveness from sin.
Now, let's go back. Can you flip your hand out over to those two prophecies? I want to show you what most people do when they study prophecy. You get off into all the crazy, cool Bible nerd facts, and you miss the point of the actual Scripture in front of your face. That's the history of prophecy in American Christianity, right there, in a nutshell. Let's go to a prophecy conference and forget who we're here talking about, because his name is Jesus. Can we underline what the anointed one is coming to do? Look at what it says there. This is the whole point seventy sevens, and everybody's off to the races right there.
But when he gets there to that holy city, underline the three things it says he's going to do. Number one, to finish the transgression. Number two, to put an end to sin. Number three, to atone for iniquity. How does that sound to anybody here tonight? Would you like to know that there has been a finish to your transgression, an end to your sin, and that all your iniquity has been covered by the anointed one who was cut off for you. That's what this is really about. Now notice it also talks about everlasting righteousness, and it talks about a holy place being anointed, which I would imagine is going to happen when Jesus comes as king and reigns in Jerusalem. But those first three things, I think they're what Jesus accomplished when he went to Jerusalem here in the Gospel of Mark, I think Jesus put a finish to your transgression. He put an end to your sin, and He atoned for your iniquity. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? How about the verse 9 across the page? Oh, he's coming to you on a donkey, and he's humble, and it's the colt, the foal of a donkey. But notice what it said right before that. Can you see this? Behold, circle Behold. That's our whole goal here tonight. This is what you need to see, your King is coming to who you, righteous and having salvation? What is he bringing to you? Hosanna, save us now. That's what he was doing. You’ve got people shouting Hosanna, meaning one thing, but Jesus is doing Hosanna, meaning another thing. He is the righteous one. He is the only one who ever fulfilled the law. He is the only one who ever obeyed all God's commands. There is only one who has ever been righteous, and his name is Jesus, and he's the only one that can bring you salvation, because he's the only one who can give you righteousness.
He had everything he needed to speak peace to the nations. He had righteousness, and that's how it says Jesus is going to reign in Isaiah 11. It says Jesus, when he's the king and he reigns, he won't reign like other kings do, based on what they can see. Jesus will reign based on what is right, and everybody who's oppressed and unjustly treated. Jesus will care for the poor and the needy. Righteousness will become the law of the land. Righteousness will actually be the tone set from the top, because that's who Jesus is. He's righteous and has salvation. Now, you could say, well, he's not really coming to us. He's going to Zion, he's going to Jerusalem, yes, but if you go down to verse 10, he's speaking peace to who? The nations, and he's ruling from where, to the ends of the earth? The salvation that Jesus brought into Jerusalem would not just bless the Jews, it would bless all peoples. Through the descendant of Abraham, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so, you need to see that he came to finish your sin. He came to bring you his salvation.
Let's get this down for our palm branches. “Prayerfully consider part one of the king's purpose.” Clearly, part of the king's purpose was salvation. And what do we mean by salvation? To save us from our sins, our transgressions, our iniquities. This is why it's said in the prophecy that an Anointed One will be cut off, and the Anointed One, when he's cut off, he will have what? Nothing. That's why there's this other seven still out there, and that's something we can get into another time. Now, who likes getting Bible nerdy on a Thursday night? Okay, if you enjoy this kind of stuff, do not forget that on Ascension Day, Thursday May 14, we are doing another Thursday night service right here in this room, and with the on that night, we will not be talking about Jesus coming to Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus will be coming to Jerusalem on a white horse, and we will talk about how he's going to restore the kingdom, and he's going to slay all of the nations that come against him with the words coming out of his mouth. But tonight, we're looking at part one, phase one, of the king's plan, and we're here to remember that the reason he rode the donkey was, he was bringing your salvation.
Can you see the king coming to save you? Do you know that Jesus has made an end to your sin? He's finished your transgression. He's paid for it with his body and his blood. What did he say when he passed them the cup and they all drank it in Mark 14? He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which I pour out for many,” and I hope you're one of the many. I hope you're here because you have transferred your trust to Jesus. So, here's what we're here to do tonight is we're here to remember that Jesus was cut off. Now let's circle that word there in Daniel 9:25, because after the seven sevens and then the sixty-two sevens, it says an Anointed One, a prince is going to come. And then in verse 26, after the sixty-two sevens, an Anointed One shall be cut off. Can you circle that right there where it says this Anointed One? Guess what the Hebrew word for Anointed One is, everybody? This is one of the clearest references of Messiah in all of the Hebrew scriptures. The Messiah will be cut off. Now you could put down Leviticus 7:20, where someone is cut off, meaning that's kind of like the death penalty, where they're separated from God's people.
Another verse I want everybody to turn to is Isaiah 53:8. This is another prophecy that talks about being cut off. This is why Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not to conquer and set up a physical kingdom, but he came to save your soul and to save you from all of the sin that you have done against a holy God Jesus, he had to die in your place. The wages of sin is death. When they used to offer a sacrifice, they would put the hand on the animal before they slit the animal's throat. And the idea was that animal had to die to atone for my sin, to cover my sin, otherwise I would die for my sin. If Jesus didn't get cut off or killed, then it would be you. It was either Jesus or it's you, and Jesus has all power. Jesus could write any story he wants. Jesus can reign supremely above every nation. And what Jesus wants to do in the story that he's writing, is riding on a donkey. Behold, your King is coming to you, humble and lowly or on a donkey, righteous and having salvation is key. Jesus could do whatever he wants, and what he wanted to do was die for you.
Isaiah 53 is one of our favorite prophecies about the sacrifice of Jesus, but we don't always make it to the verse where it says that he was cut off. Look at Isaiah 53, verse 8. This is a different Hebrew word, but it's this same idea. Isaiah 53:8. It says, “by oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that, he was cut off out of the land of the living,” You want to know where you go when you're out of the land of the living, everybody, that means you're dead, cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for what? Why was he cut off? Why was he killed for the transgression of my people? We are here to remember that the reason Jesus rode in on the donkey, the reason he came in humility, the reason he was lowly, is because he was getting down on your level. He was coming to satisfy God's righteous wrath for your sin by offering his blood, his righteous blood as atonement to pay for your sin. Jesus was cut off out of the land of the living. Jesus ended up it says, in Daniel 9, he had nothing. Was there a kingdom that God started? No, there was not. He didn't come to start his kingdom. He came for you. What kind of a king trades his kingdom for you, for us, for his many. Jesus is the only King that's ever been like that, and he has paid for all of your sin. You receive his righteousness. I want to make this very clear to everybody here, okay, the only righteousness you have is the righteousness Jesus gives you, and once you trust in Jesus, you have hundred percent righteousness. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? You can't be more righteous than you are with the righteousness of Jesus. There's nothing you can do to get more righteous. The minute you believe in Jesus, you are saved by grace, through faith, you are justified. God declares you righteous. And when you are declared righteous by God, through the blood and the body of Jesus, you are one hundred percent righteous, and your transgression is finished.
It says that Jesus, when he came, he came to destroy the work of the devil. What was the work of the devil? To deceive and to bring about death, to deceive into sin and to bring about death. And Jesus came, and he put an end to all of that. You have been completely saved from your sin by Jesus, because he was cut off. Your transgressions have been forgiven. So, I want you to take some time to pray about this. I hope all this Scripture that we've gone over, was this a lot of Bible study for everybody on a Thursday? I hope that all this scripture we've gone over has inspired you to pray, and I hope you're inspired to say thank you to Jesus. But here's what I want you to think. Two things I really want you to think about praying for. Number one is we're going to have a whole lot of visitors coming through here tomorrow night, and did you notice there were more chairs set up in the auditorium when you came in? We're hoping there'll be souls in those seats. This is why we were praying that God would give us a bigger box like this, so that we could tell people good news. Could you pray that phase one of the king's plan will be accomplished? Because phase one of the king's plan is salvation for many, and there are people who live around here that need to get saved. Tomorrow night, they need to get saved. Saturday night, they need to get saved. Of all things, on Easter Sunday Resurrection Sunday morning, and we can ask God to do it here tonight.
The second thing we need to really learn how to pray for through this study that we're going to do is who's praying for the Kingdom? See Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's about God's glory. That's about God making himself known to your kingdom. When was the last time you really begged Jesus to come back? Who's the last time just you by yourself, thinking, I can't wait? When was last time you said, Hosanna, how these people meant it, Jesus come and save us out of this place. We need you to come back and establish a reign of righteousness. Oh, I'd love to be a part of that kingdom that goes from the river to the ends of the earth. Oh, I'd love to see that where righteousness that endures forever, where there's a holy place, where Jesus is that everybody can go there and worship him. Wow, Jesus. When are you coming? We're ready. How many more Easters do we have? How many more years must we watch sin spread among the people. When were you really last time asking Jesus I want to go to your kingdom? Because Daniel really wanted to go to Jerusalem and Nehemiah really wanted to go to Jerusalem, and their prayers were answered. And sometimes I wonder if the reason our prayers aren't answered it's because we don't really want to go to Jerusalem. Do we really want to see the King? Is the number one goal in your life, the climax, the highest point, the thing that everything else is building up to for you, I want to bow in the presence of King Jesus? I want to see his glorious face. I'm tired of all the shenanigans going on in the nations of this world right now. I'm tired of watching even people who claim to be Christians, their love grow cold. I want to see what Jesus would do with this place. Oh, Jesus, let your kingdom come. We need to pray like Daniel and Nehemiah. We need to not settle just for the king on the donkey. We need the King who he reigns from sea to sea. So, you're going to get a moment to pray. Right now, I'm going to pray for you, and then you can pray, and then we'll take communion together, and we will proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So, let's pray.
Father, I just thank you that we could have this special time together on this Thursday night to go through these two prophecies that every Christian should know, but they don't get enough attention. So, God, thank you that we could take some time together to study your Word, to behold what you foretold. God, wow. You had a place where you put your name. You had a timeline of when it would happen. You had a plan with the donkey to represent humility and the lowly king coming in righteous and having salvation. Is he? What a beautiful story you're writing. God, we worship you for these prophecies, but Father, we confess that so many times when people get caught up in the study of prophecy, they miss the point, which is at the end of seventy sevens, transgression will be finished, sin will be put to an end. The whole reason they were in exile was because of their sin. And you're saying, I'm going to do better than get you back to Jerusalem. I'm going to atone for your iniquity. I pray that it would not be lost on anyone here, and even some sick brothers and sisters watching at home right now, I pray that all of us would be able to see that the reason Jesus rode in on that donkey is he came to save our souls because of our sin. God, I pray that every eye could see Jesus on that donkey, and the people are shouting Hosanna, and they think he's going to start Israel all over again, but I pray that we could see what he was really doing. He's saving our souls. Behold, our King came to us humble and lowly on a donkey to put an end to my sin, to finish my transgression, to atone for my iniquity. The only reason I have salvation is because there was a day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing full well what they would do to him, and he rode in anyways. God, please let us see Jesus willing to die for the likes of us, cut off for the transgressions of many. Please, let us thank Jesus in prayer. Let Jesus hear from us right now. Let all these Scriptures inspire us to pray, Father.