The Hosanna Urge
SERMON STARTER
Henry C. Morrison was a great missionary who served the Lord in Africa for over 40 years. On the way back to United States, he began to wonder “will anyone remember us? Will anyone recall who we are? Will anyone meet us at the boat?” The year was 1905, and unknown to Henry Morrison and his wife, Teddy Roosevelt, President of U.S., was also on board that ship. He had gone to Africa for a hunting trip
When ship pulled into New York harbor he looked to see if anyone had come to welcome them back home. Thousands of people were there cheering. Bands were playing. There were signs, banners, and billboards everywhere saying,
“Welcome Home”.
Henry and his wife were so excited about the crowds of people that were there to welcome them home and they went down to get their luggage, came back to the deck of the ship to get off and they realized that the parade of people were already gone. The crowds had come to welcome Teddy Roosevelt.
Henry Morrison went to his hotel room with a heavy heart. As he sat there on the bed, he asked his wife,
“Honey, I just don’t get it…for 40 years we poured our lives into ministry and service. And yet we come back to America and not a single soul comes to welcome us home!”
His wife came and sat down next to her husband, she put her hand on his shoulder, and comforted him with words that he would never forget,
“Henry, you have forgotten something, you’re not home yet!”
The crowds were welcoming Jesus and welcoming him into Jerusalem, but His Home was heaven.
Pastor Phil <><<
March 24, 2013 / Palm Sunday
Pastor Phil Roland - Sheepfold Ministries
The Hosanna Urge
Psalm 150:1-6 - Luke 19:28-44
“The Hosanna Urge is deep inside of each believer who follows Jesus. There is a longing within our hearts in the midst of life's disappointments, heartaches and pain to worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!” Pastor Phil
THE BACKGROUND:
Josephus, the 3rd Century Jewish historian, estimated that two to three million people were involved in the great Passover Feast
It is known that 256,500 lambs were slain at one Passover and that each lamb represented at least ten worshippers
Jerusalem teemed w/thousands from all over the world who flooded into the city to observe the Passover
The mass of people and the necessary housing and food arrangements to handle such a mass of people can hardly be imagined
The Hosanna Urge
I. ROYALTY IS PASSING BY - Verse 35
"Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him."
A. Five Century-old Prophesy is fulfilled - 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."
1. Donkey was first domesticated in Mesopotamia
2. Third Millennium B.C.
3. Used as beasts of burden
4. Ridden by Non-military personnel
5. The Donkey was an Animal of Peace
6. The Horse was an Animal of War
B. Prince of Peace rides on a Donkey, the symbol of Peace
1. Years before Jesus rode to Bethlehem outside Jerusalem
2. He rode b-4 His birth w/in his mother's womb on a donkey
3. Now, Jesus rides into Jerusalem as the Prince of Peace
C. The multitude Joyfully gave. . .John 12:12-13
"The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they
heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13 took branches of palm trees
and went out to meet Him, and cried out: "Hosanna! 'Blessed is He who
comes in the name of the LORD!' The King of Israel!"
1. The man willingly gave the Colt - Matthew 21:1-3
"Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at
the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them,
The Hosanna Urge, p.2
"Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a
donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me.
3 And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has
need of them,' and immediately he will send them."
2. The disciples gave their Cloaks for His seat
3. The people gave heart-felt Worship and Adoration
The Hosanna UrgE. . .
II. CANNOT BE STIFLED - Verse 39
"And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples."
A. "Hosanna!" - Hebrew pronunciation - “Ho-sho-no! Rabbah!”
"Save now, I pray, O LORD; O LORD, I pray, send now prosperity.
26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We have blessed you
from the house of the LORD." Psalm 118:25-26
1. "Save us! We beseech Thee, O Lord!”
2. What were they wanting deliverance from?
3. From the Brutal and Crushing Hand of Rome?
4. From the Hand of Poverty?
5. Was it a Shout of Fervent and Worshipful Praise?
6. Was it a Cry of Distress?
B. Many Praise God when it Feels Good / Ignore Him in Times of Trial
1. Call upon God for Deliverance - Jeremiah 33:3
"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty
things, which you do not know.'"
2. Call upon Him in times of Trouble - Psalm 50:15
"Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall
glorify Me."
C. Praising God cannot be Repressed - Psalm 150:1-5
1. Praise Him in the Sanctuary
2. Praise Him in His Mighty Firmament
3. Praise the Lord for. . .
a. Mighty Acts
b. Excellent Greatness
c. Trumpet, Lute and Harp
d. Timbrel and Dance
e. Stringed Instruments, Flutes, Cymbals
4. Praise the Lord! - Psalm 150:6
"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!"
5. It's the Hosanna Urge!
The Hosanna Urge
III. CANNOT BE REBUKED - Verse 40
"But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."
The Hosanna Urge, p.3
A. Legalists Try to Squelch the Crowd
1. His disciples called Him "Messiah"
2. This is considered vain, proud, arrogant, blasphemy
B. Cannot be Done - Even Creation Groans - Romans 8:22
"For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs
together until now."
C. God’s King Had Come! All Creation Rejoiced!
The Hosanna Urge
III. IS BIRTHED IN TEARS - Verse 41
"Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,"
A. Jesus Wept When He Beheld the City - Matt. 23:37
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together,
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"
1. He is a man of Grief and Tears - Isaiah 53:3
"He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him."
2. John Greenleaf Whittier poem:
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It
might have been.” ―John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Miller, Pamphlet
B. How We Kill the Hosanna Urge Today. . .
1. Deadly Sense of Duty: Compulsive Church duties
a. Done through Guilt
b. Done through Obligation
2. Please our Parents, Friends, Minister
a. What about pleasing God?
b. Whose ears are our praises intended for, anyway?
3. Our Own Inhibitions - “What will others think?”
4. Personal Sin - Un-confessed and unrepentant
a. Sin separates
b. Cuts us off from God, Ourselves and Others
THE HOSANNA URGE
Luke 19:28-44 (NKJV)
28 When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
29 And it came to pass, when He came near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples,
30 saying, "Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here.
31 And if anyone asks you, 'Why are you loosing it?' thus you shall say to him, 'Because the Lord has need of it.' "
32 So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them.
33 But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, "Why are you loosing the colt?"
34 And they said, "The Lord has need of him."
35 Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him.
36 And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.
37 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,
38 saying: "'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!' Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"
39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples."
40 But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."
41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,
42 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.
43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side,
44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."
Psalm 150:1-6 (NKJV)
1 Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
2 Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
3 Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp!
4 Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!
THE HOSANNA URGE
CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATION
A number of years ago a book was written by a noted American historian entitled "When The Cheering Stopped." It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over, Wilson was an international hero. There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.
On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in England and Italy.
In a Vienna hospital a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times. The children didn’t believe her. They said that President Wilson was coming and they knew that everything would be all right.
The cheering lasted about a year. Then it gradually began to stop. It turned out that the political leaders in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they were a lasting peace.
At home, Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition in the United States Senate and his League of Nations was not ratified. Under the strain of it all the President’s health began to break. In the next election his party was defeated.
So it was that Woodrow Wilson, a man who barely a year or two earlier had been heralded as the new world Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated man.
TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE SHOUTING HOSANNA
You will see multitudes of people who will shout Hosanna to the Lord this morning, but which Hosanna are they shouting?
Are they shouting Hosanna, praise the Lord, the Savior of the World, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hosanna to the Lord of my life. Hosanna to the one who died for me and saved my from my sins. Glory to his wonderful name!
Or, are they shouting Hosanna, “save us now, save us”, save us from our burdens. Save us from our troubles. Save us from our sicknesses. Save us from our family troubles. Save us from the storms of life, but don’t try to control my life because I want to be free to live as I please without the interference of God’s laws and his word.
ESTIMATED CROWD SIZE: 180,000 to 400,000
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Show me the man you honor and I will know what kind of man you are. Thomas Carlyle.
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I am the least of the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15:9
I am the very least of all the saints. Ephesians 3:8
I am the foremost of sinners. 1 Timothy 1:15
Humility and a passion for praise are a pair of characteristics which together indicate growth in grace. The Bible is full of self-humbling (man bowing down before God) and doxology (man giving praise to God). The healthy heart is one that bows down in humility and rises in praise and adoration. The Psalms strike both these notes again and again. So too, Paul in his letters both articulates humility and breaks into doxology. Look at his three descriptions of himself quoted above, dating respectively from around A.D. 59, 63, and 64. As the years pass he goes lower; he grows downward! And as his self-esteem sinks, so his rapture of praise and adoration for the God who so wonderfully saved him rises.
Undoubtedly, learning to praise God at all times for all that is good is a mark that we are growing in grace. One of my predecessors in my first parochial appointment died exceedingly painfully of cancer. But between fearful bouts of agony, in which he had to stuff his mouth with bedclothes to avoid biting his tongue, he would say aloud over and over again: "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth" (Ps. 34:1). That was a passion for praise asserting itself in the most poignant extremity imaginable.
Cultivate humility and a passion for praise if you want to grow in grace.
James Packer, Your Father Loves You, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986.
When I saw Sadhu Sundar Singh in Europe, he had completed a tour around the world. People asked him, Doesn't it do harm, your getting so much honor?" The Sadhu's answer was: "No. The donkey went into Jerusalem, and they put garments on the ground before him. He was not proud. He knew it was not done to honor him, but for Jesus, who was sitting on his back. When people honor me, I know it is not me, but the Lord, who does the job."
Corrie Ten Boom, Each New Day.
Illustration
Dr. Seamands tells of a Muslim who became a Christian in Africa. "Some of his friends asked him, ’Why have you become a Christian?’ He answered, ’Well, it’s like this. Suppose you were going down the road and suddenly the road forked in two directions, and you didn’t know which way to go, and there at the fork in the road were two men, one dead and one alive--which one would you ask which way to go?’"
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