I want to open with these scriptures here in the book of
Genesis chapter 2. Then the Lord God took the man,
put him in the Garden of Eden attending keep it.
The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of our tree of the
garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it,
you will surely die. The Lord God said is not good,
that man should be alone. I will make him a helper
comparable to him. I believe it's so important that
we would understand that God is doing something awesome in the
earth. Last week I shared with you the
scriptures. In the book Galatians chapter 4,
the apostle Paul in writing to the Church of Galatia said now
in the old covenant and in the Old Testament as you read the
stories today, God treated you as servants.
Because even though you're a child of God, an heir, as long
as he's a child doesn't differ anything from a servant, though
he is Lord of all things, but is under tutors and governors until
the time appointed of that father to give them the
inheritance. I believe all with all my heart
that that verse there is very, very important for the day and
hour in which we live. Because although the apostle
Paul spoke that 2000 years ago and the prophecies concerning it
go all the way back to what I'm reading to you today in Genesis
chapter 1, which was over 4000 years ago or 6000 years ago, I
guess you could say. And in all of these things, God
has times and seasons and we need to know what season it is.
And this is a season where God is saying he expects us to take
a step in maturity and so that he might give more
responsibility to us. It's very important that we're
also where the world in which we live.
We're living in a very fast-paced and changing world,
and if you'll study church history and even reading the
Bible, you'll see that God has always consistently worked in
his people to prepare us for whatever time it is in the
natural. So when we say with God there's
times and seasons, we have to understand that those are tied
to what's going on in the world. So as I've been in prayer, the
Lord's been speaking to me that He's wanted me to take a closer
look at some of the scriptures and some things that I've always
taught in order that I might have a amplification,
clarification and enlargement even in that understanding.
That's what I started with you last week and speaking from the
book of Genesis and what I'm going to continue with today.
The Bible says that when God first created mankind that He
formed us from the dust of the earth, breathed in our nostrils
the breath of life and we became a living being, body, soul and
spirit. Now as you notice here, it says
that after God created man, he put him in the Garden of Eden
and told him he needed to guard to cultivate the garden.
Now, the part that I'm adding right now is the matter of
choosing or choice, because although I've always understood
that God put mankind in the garden, it was important to
understand that was a stewardship.
And I thought concerning, well, what did He have to do in the
garden? Well, He had to cultivate it
like with any other garden. And then of course, you also had
to guard that garden in order for it to bring forth its
fullness. But as I was reading recently,
the Lord began to speak to me that I needed to add the
stewardship of choice because God giving us a choice is a
very, very important thing for us to just understand in the
Scriptures. And again, often times when
people read the story of Genesis chapter 2, they think that God
gave them a choice to basically test them.
Are you going to be obedient or not?
And unfortunately they were disobedient.
So in our mind, mankind was at that point in time not only
taken out the garden, but many people believe that, well, we're
not only fallen in our responsibility, but fallen in
our nature. And so they said man became
depraved. The total, the depravity of man
is a very important doctrine in a lot of people's minds.
But as I read the Bible and I realized that God is our Father,
I believe it's very important for us to understand that for
him it wasn't just about a test of obedience.
And you can see that as you go through the Scriptures, just
like a quote here today, that God starts by teaching us
obedience. And I explained that last week
how that when we have children as parents, the first thing we
teach them is to be obedient because we need to protect them
from themselves to kind of keep them alive if you would, to keep
them healthy. But always with the idea that
our job is to bring them to a place of maturity.
Not that they would just always be obedient, but they're able to
make choices. As a father, it would be a sad
thing for me if every day my adult children had to call me on
the phone, tell me what they were doing that day, and ask me
what choices they should make. That would be a whole lot of
work. God says no.
I raised you just like you raised your children in order
that they might grow in maturity and come to the place of making
a choice. And that's a strange thing
because I've often shared how being in the ministry all these
years, one of the things I've often heard people say is, well,
how can you say there's a God when there's wars and all these
bad things happening? And it's important for us to
realize why all these things happen according to God, the
Bible, because God gives people choice, because mankind has
choices. And that's why we have
conflicts, That's why we have wars.
That's why we have a whole lot of things that are happening,
because God has given us a gift of choice.
And that's very important for us to understand that.
And because of that, we need to become proficient, mature in our
understanding about the fact that God has given us a choice.
So basically, if a person says that, they're basically saying
that God, if he's God, he's going to control the whole world
to make sure nothing happens to us.
And that would be like saying he's going to be a father having
little children and never letting them go on to maturity.
And so we look through the Bible and we should see through
history that society has been developing, cultures have
developing, and God has been overseeing it so that we could
become a people knowing how to make a proper choice.
Why? Because it's God's gift, and God
doesn't just give us the gift of choice to see if, again, we're
going to fail or succeed. He gives us choices, and those
choices increase over time in order that He might train us.
When we first started the church, I would seek the Lord
for everything that I was doing. Lord, what do we call this
church? What building we supposed to
buy? What about this?
Now me, after 48 years, I should
understand a little bit of God's ways.
Amen. I should understand not just
that God speaks, but I should also in the process of this
learned the ways of God so that I could be come proficient in
those ways and then be able to train you in His ways.
And I believe with all my heart, this is the day that's going to
see the fulfillment of that which was spoken by Isaiah in
the land rays of time. The mountain of the Lords house
is going to be established on top of the mountains, exalted
above the hills that people are going to say, come and let us go
to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob.
That's personal. He will teach us of his ways.
We will walk in his path. For out of Mount Zion should go
the law and the Word, the Lord from Jerusalem.
We live in a world of conflict. We live in a world with all
kinds of opinions, all kinds of influences.
And God says to the church, now you have to be an influence, you
have to be the light of the world.
You must become the salt of the earth.
And that's only going to be true if you mature and become that
people of choice that I've called you to be.
Thus saith the Lord. Now this is a very important
scripture where there is no counsel, the people do what they
fall. But in the multitude of
counselors there is safety. We know from reading the story
of the beginning is they didn't seek the proper counsel, did
they? And we'll review that of course.
And because they didn't receive the proper counsel, they fell.
God wants us to understand how important counsel is, and He
wants us to be a people council. That's why we have a ministry
here of counseling. And that's why we have a class
where we'll be having graduates come in May.
And we've now extended that to our international ministries, a
counselor training class, because that class is a
wonderful class for people to learn how to sell counsel.
And it's a very good class in helping counsel other people
because we need counselors. We need the counsel of the word.
We shouldn't just go to the church on Sundays and get an
inspired thought and then just go live our life.
We should realize that when we come to the House of God, it's
so that we can be increased in our wisdom.
And then being increased in wisdom, we could go forth and
have the wisdom of God applied to our family life, the wisdom
of God applied to our finances, the wisdom of God applied to our
marriages and our vocations and our business.
How many know God's word has something to touch every aspect
of our life? Amen.
And so we want God's counsel in order that we're not going to
fall. And then it says in the
multitude of counselors, there is safety.
Now, that doesn't mean that we're supposed to be indecisive,
that we always have to be asking something, what should I do,
What should I do? But it is important to
understand there's different kinds of console that we need to
draw on. Now when we realize that God
created his body, soul and spirit, we should realize that
even within our self, God has given us a capacity of self
counsel, if you would. That comes from the fact that He
has given us a human spirit. The human spirit is the part of
you that has a conscience. What the Bible calls conscious
in this original translation means Co perception.
That means when you're going through life, God has given you
a voice to kind of warn you, don't do that, that's not right.
And how we know if we develop sensitivity, that's a good thing
for us. That's what the Bible calls the
New covenant, where He writes His law, our law, His laws on
our inward part so we won't sin against Him.
Then also He's given us the capacity to learn about His
Word. And when you come to church,
there is a place of learning. There's an intellectual aspect
of what you're being taught today, but you have to
understand that the Word of God is also food for your spirit.
So when He placed mankind in the garden, they had fruit trees for
their body and they had the tree of life for their spirit.
And so it's important for us to understand that God gives us the
capacity. And then what does He do?
He introduces the concept of counselors.
Now when the Lord God created man, He said it's not good that
man should be alone. I'll create him a helper.
Now in creating a helper, it wasn't just to help him with the
work wasn't just helped by taking part of his physical
responsibility. How we know God has greatest
male and female both in his image and likeness, but with
different thought processes. I found out that my wife and I
don't think the same. There's a lot of male, female
differences. There's a lot of cultural
differences. If you would background
differences, whatever they are, we don't think the same.
So God says I'm going to give you somebody to counsel with.
That's why it's important for us to not simply go into the
hierarchy of who's in charge, but to understand we need each
other. Can I hear an event on that?
And that has to do with counsel, because it's in counsel that
we're going to find true wisdom that God has for us.
Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made.
And what did he say to the woman?
Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the
garden? The woman said that the serpent
we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree which is amidst the garden, God has said
you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, least you die.
So now she is standing next to the tree.
And I've always said, if you don't want to eat off the tree,
how many of you should be standing next to it?
And you shouldn't be talking to somebody that's going to give
you bad counsel. Now, I know it uses the term
serpent, which we often translate as a snake, but the
word in the original context means a whispering creature.
And again, when you see the counsel of the whole word in the
Book of Revelation, it says that the dragon of the Book of the
Revelation is the serpent that was in the garden.
So we understand it's not the physical identity we're talking
about here. It's the role this particular
creature was going to play, and he was a whispering creature
because God had said, don't eat of that tree.
And he's like, come here. I know what God told you, but
think about this. He just wants to keep you as a
slave. He just wants you to live in
your simplicity. He doesn't want you to that tree
because he knows that when you eat there, you're going to be
just like him. So the serpent was the one that
was, in this sense, offering an alternative to God's plan of
action. And Eve, unfortunately, was
listening to the serpent. Now, in talking to the serpent,
do you think he saw himself as a counselor?
She might have thought of that way.
Oh, here's a counselor. He's going to give me some
advice about this tree. He wasn't trying to counselor.
He was trying to lead her. And that's why I say this
message that God sent to the church.
It is a little bit more sophisticated, if you would, and
that it requires a little bit more thinking than the way we
think about God in the past. But how many know We live in a
time where you got to know what's happening.
Amen. And you also have to know how to
respond to the world because there's a lot of counselors out
there. They're called influencers this
day, or experts if you would, because sometimes we pay them,
sometimes we just listen to them.
But how we know everybody has something to say.
So we have to understand, well, if God has given us the gift of
choice, then we should be able to look at our lives and face
every situation, understanding there is a place we're having
counselors. But I also have to be mindful.
There's a whole lot of people out there who want to lead us.
They want to tell us what to do. We don't always realize that's
going on, but it's happening. And oftentimes, and this is a
very important thing that I want us to realize, is that we're
oftentimes receiving counsel or being influenced and we don't
even know it. Good way to explain that is in
fashion fashions always changing.
Yeah. Some people want to jump on the
forefront so they could be fashionable.
Other people like, I'm not going to change.
I like the way I dress and but slow, but surely everybody gets
on board and after a while you look back and say how did we
ever wear something like that? I've always been a person that
when I was a kid there was growing up as a teenager, I
guess is the best time. I would say that happened is you
had the greasers and the frats in our generation and the
greasers were more likely to be what I would consider it more
dressed up look, Motown look was pretty dressy versus a, a frat
who would be more casual. And I was a gracer and I
continue with that face throughout my life.
I was always the person that picked the choice.
It was a little bit more dressy versus more casual.
In the 70s, there was the hippie movement that had an influence.
And so most everybody was dressing in blue jeans and
dressed like the person who just like, I don't care how I look,
it's the way I looked at it. And I met my wife, Bonnie.
She'll tell people she felt sorry for me because I never
owned a pair of blue jeans and I didn't tell.
I was about 40. But anyway, I felt sorry for all
those poor people because why are they dressing like that when
they can dress up? So back in the 70s, there was
this what we'll call, I'll call the disco look.
Anybody remember the disco look or the movie Staying Alive?
Your laughing Remember the day. But anyway, there's a little
more dressy look if you would. And even now that everybody
pretty well dresses casual, I try to pick a little bit more
dressy. It's just more appealing to me.
But the truth is in our general persuasion, we usually do follow
to some degree or the other. I remember laughing about this
at one time because one day my mom come into church and she's
wearing this green color. This would have been in the 90s
and I'm like, mom, what are you doing?
That's the 70s green that I hated.
She's like, oh, I like it. Well, the next year I had it in
one of my ties. I'm like, hey, I like it now
too. And speaking about ties, I
remember when ties were really fat.
Then they get real skinny now they've disappeared all
together. So it's just the way it works.
It's funny because if you went to a Holiness Pentecostal
church, there was a time when ties first came in style.
And if you were a tie, you were considered very worldly because
you wanted to dress yourself up with a tie so that you can have
color and look good. And then over the years, after a
while, it got to where the Holiness churches were, like,
you come to church without a tie.
That's not very holy. And and so the church usually
somewhere or another accommodates these things and
doesn't even realize themselves how they're changing in a world
is changing. But the truth is we change,
don't we? During the COVID situation when
people were at home watching TV became very popular to remodel
your house and a lot of people were watching shows.
And I remember they would always go into a house and they go, you
need to open this up. You need an open floor plan.
Everybody's like, yes, I have to have an open floor plan.
Everybody know what I'm talking about out there.
I can't see you because of the lights about closed.
But now why did they want us to have an open floor plan?
Because nobody had it. How do you know if you're
selling house products, you want them to change what they're
doing? Amen.
That's where the influence comes in.
Somebody's telling us how to dress.
Somebody's telling us what we need to buy, and they're pushing
us along. And that's just a part of life.
It's not bad, it's not good, but we have to understand sometimes
these influences that seem very subtle and persuasive.
Over time we start changing our philosophy concerning our
morality, how we live our life than what we're doing every day
and church. How many know we need to be on
guard for that. And so the serpents, they're not
just a council, but he wanted to persuade her to go a different
way than she was supposed to go. The man then the man said, the
woman whom you gave to be with me.
She gave me the tree and I ate and the Lord said to the woman,
what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent
deceived me and are 8. So after they had disobeyed God,
the Bible says that after the woman had eaten of the fruit,
she gave it to her husband and he also ate.
So then God comes down to find out what's going on and they're
hiding. He's like, why are why are you
guys hiding? Well, we're naked.
We're embarrassed. But who told you you were naked?
Did you eat from that tree? Now Adam's first response is,
you have the woman you gave to me, she gave me the tree and I
ate. So how do you know he wasn't
just blaming the woman, He's also blaming God?
Why did you give me a wife anyway?
Some people ask that from time to time, right?
And the Bible says that he just ate.
So the truth is he didn't even ask any questions.
I don't know if that's worse than he who was asking questions
or not, but they both ended up in the same position, right?
So what she did is she blamed the serpent.
And I like to always say he didn't have a leg to stand on
because, you know, anyway. I was deceived, she said.
And you know, the Bible says she was deceived.
There's confirmations about that.
She was right. It wasn't just the choice.
She became deceived in me and that's why she made the wrong
choice. But guess what?
It didn't matter. You could blame anybody you want
for your choices, but in the end, you have to make a choice.
I'm going to make the right choice.
It's a new day. Amen, Church.
And God wants us to know this is a day when he wants us to begin
to look at our world from a whole new perspective.
That's what I love about God is when you make mistakes, how do
you know if you committed any trespasses?
If you confess your sin, He's faithful and just and forgive us
of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteous.
So give them a lot of praise on that.
But if you ask him to do that, you should also say, and now I'm
going to start making the right choices.
You'll still make mistakes along the way.
That's pretty normal in the human experience.
But we should ever be making choices that are going to give
us the capacity to move on the things God has for us.
So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done
this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every
beast of the field on your belly.
You should go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
Now we'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed
and her seed. He shall bruise your head and
you shall bruise his heel. Now basically what that's saying
is one day there's going to be a child born.
And we celebrated that at Christmas.
On to us a child was born. On to us a son was given.
But what do we commemorate on this Easter week?
And this is important to understand because today is Palm
Sunday. That's where I read the Palm
Sunday scriptures. It's the beginning of what is
often called the Holy Week. Because this week we'll have at
Mount Zion or normal Tuesday and Wednesday services, but we'll
also have a Good Friday service at 1:00 in Auditorium A so that
we can commemorate the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross.
And of course, next Sunday's the exciting day because that's
resurrection Day. How many glad for resurrection
day, Amen. But if you think about it and
this is the time frame all these things happened, isn't that
amazing how much happened in that one week on a Sunday, Jesus
comes into Jerusalem and by Friday he's being crucified.
But thank God, by the next Sunday He has risen from the
dead. Amen.
So this is very important to understand that God spoke
judgement again upon the serpent, and He spoke judgement
upon the woman. And the woman's promise was that
through her seed there would be a change because Jesus Christ
when he came. How do you know We commemorate
the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for the forgiveness
of our sins. And when he rose from the dead,
the Bible says he defeated the devil.
He defeated principalities and powers and made an open show of
them. Because now it's time for us to
walk in victory. Amen, church.
Hallelujah. Praise his holy name for that.
But it wasn't just the seed who would be Jesus Christ.
Bible says in the Book of Revelation 12, it's most amply
demonstrated that the seed of the woman is also the seed of
the Christ. He was the first born among many
brethren. And now we're the seed whom the
Bible says God wants to put Satan under our feet.
Anybody ready for that church? It's time for victory.
Amen. It's time to understand, but we
also have to understand that we're in a time of hostility and
conflict. And we have to understand
there's a spiritual dimension to that because God said there
would be a hostility and enmity. There would be a conflict
between the woman and her seed and the devil's seed.
And this is one of the things I was thinking this week.
I saw in a more clear fashion because I always thought about
the seed defeating Satan. But it says Satan's seed.
Well, who is Satan's seed? Now this is an important
question that asked and it's answered by Jesus Christ.
Why do you not understand my speech?
Because you are not able to listen to my words easy enough.
You are of your Father, the devil, the desires of your
father you want to do. He was a murderer from the
beginning, does not stand in the truth because there is no truth
in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks
from his own resources. That literally means he speaks
from himself. It's who he is.
And that's what comes out of him, for he is a liar and the
father of it. I mean, you know, that should
make us not want to be a liar. Amen.
We should want to tell the truth.
Why? Well, this scripture is very
obviously telling us, and this is what Jesus was telling the
people. And, and you know, a lot of
people think of Jesus only as the nice guy.
Well, that wasn't so nice telling everybody their father
was the devil. Come on.
I'm imagining there were more than just a few that were a
little bit offended with what he had to say that day.
But it's important to understand that because when we think about
the hostility and enmity we have, there's a spiritual
component to it for sure. But most of it involves people
that we are in conflict on a regular basis and we have to
understand that. God says, I want you to know he
wants us to have victory over conflict.
It should start with our conflicts that we have among us,
his people and in our marriages. And then it should be a a solid
force going forth in order to face the challenges of the world
in which we live. Amen, Church.
And so it's important for us to recognize whenever we're being
self-centered, we're following after the father of the
unrighteous seed. And that's what he always was
selling from the very beginning. That's why I've often said the
devil's goal is not to get you on his side.
His goal is to get you on your side because then he can
introduce conflict in your life, and then he can add conflict to
your relationships. And before you knew it, you're
all separated like he was when she was standing next to the
tree, just listening to all these random voices and not
listening to the truth. I'm glad we can know the truth
through Jesus Christ, Amen. And you will know the truth, and
the truth will make you free. And so these concepts are very
important for us to understand. And this is an example of it
here with Peter. Then Peter took Jesus aside and
began to rebuke him, saying, far be it from you, Lord, this would
happen to you. And he turned and said, Peter,
get behind me, Satan, you are an offense to me.
Why? You are mindful of the thing.
You are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things
of men. You see, Jesus told his
disciples before he was going to go through all the things that
will be commemorating this week. And Peter's like, hey, wait a
second, I'm on your side. That's not going to happen.
Wow, what was he speaking? He was speaking from the human
nature, of course, and he was looking at Jesus's life only
from a human perspective. And that's why he would say that
can't happen to you, I'm going to stop it from happening.
And that's why Jesus said give me harm you Satan was Peter
demon possessed? No, but Peter was following the
resources of a human experience and only operating from that
human perspective. How many you know, we got to
rise above that as ministers one to another.
Amen. A lot of people go through
circumstances that I don't understand, and sometimes people
face challenges and I pray, Lord, help them get out of that
circumstance and situation. But as we go through these
things together, we always have to realize that there's more
that's happening than meets the eye.
We're not just in the natural world world.
We're in a spiritual realm as well.
Amen, church. And so we always have to face
every situation saying, well, this isn't just about what I'm
seeing in the NASRO. This is what's going on in the
spiritual dimension as well. And I've got to make a choice.
Am IA son of the most high God or am I going to follow the
voice of the enemy that wants me only to operate from a humor
perspective? Because when you do that well,
you have a right to be mad. You have a right to hold on to
your anger. You have a right to separate
yourself. There's all kinds of things that
get into your spirit, and all it does is it brings death.
And God says, let me make you alive and don't just let me make
you alive. Let me show you that you can
have the abundant life because Jesus didn't come just to make
us alive. He has come to give us the
abundant life. Amen, Church.
Let's walk in the abundant life that he has for all of us.
Now, having said all of that is an instruction.
I want to go now to the story of the entrance of Jesus Christ
into Jerusalem, saying to them, 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.
And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say the Lord
doesn't need of them. And immediately he will send
them. All this was done that it might
be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet saying, tell the
daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming lowly sitting on
a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Now when God speaks about something coming to pass church,
it's going to come to pass. And in this case, Jesus was
supposed to go into the holy city and he was supposed to go
riding on not just a donkey, but the cult of a donkey.
How many know that was a humble thing for him to do.
Now it's important for us to realize because as He's entering
into the city, if Jesus had a marketing department, they would
have advised him very good on this one.
Because you know what was happening to Jerusalem?
It was a festival time. It was the festival of the
Passover. All the Jews had to go to
Jerusalem 3 * a year, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles.
And when they did, it was a time for a festival, a celebration.
And it was a very important time when everyone would bring a
sacrifice, everybody bring in tithes and offerings.
It was a great celebration. People haven't changed all that
much. You can be assured there was a
spiritual side, but how we know there would have been a natural
side too. And in that natural side, it's
party time, Let's have a good time.
This is about family. This is about what we're seeing.
And when you went to the Holy City, there have been people
coming from all walks of life and they would have been, some
of them very famous people. And so you would have been
saying, hey, see who that is? You've heard about them, that
that's so and so. And they would have been very
mindful of the celebrities, wouldn't have they?
And they would have heard about this Jesus Christ who was a
teacher and a healer, and they would have heard perhaps about
his miracles. And so when he's coming, what a
great time of celebration, when he's coming into the city, you
can be sure that people's like, hey, it's party time.
Here comes another one of those famous people.
Now, it's important to know that because God wanted to set up
this situation for his son, his son to have a dramatic entrance
into the city by having him ride on a donkey's colt.
Jesus could have been saying, well, I'm not just going to go
like a normal Messiah would because he was the Messiah.
Because you would expect the Messiah to come in on a big
white stallion, perhaps having all kinds of designations and
decorations upon it, maybe even with an army behind him,
whatever. That isn't the way Jesus come
in. That's why I said about market
part. Hey, when you go in, show them
your message. Well, as this story unfolds
throughout it this week and in the Bible, you realize that he
was selling his message. But in the end you find out,
guess what? A lot of people didn't want that
message. But here they brought the donkey
in the colt. They laid their clothes on them
and set him on them, and a great multitude spread their clothes
on the road. Others cut down branches from
the trees and spread them on the road.
Then the multitudes went before those who followed and cried
out, saying, Hosanna to the son of David.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the
highs. It was a great celebration.
Amen. Why do we call Palm Sunday?
Because that verse says some of them were throwing down palm
branches. Somebody said, well, why don't
you have palm branches on Palm Sunday?
Well, we also have coats. They threw coats on the road,
too. Anybody have a coat?
I'll qualify this. It's cold Sunday, not just Palm
Sunday. The point is, it's the time of
celebration and people were being spontaneous and whether it
was throwing palm branches or whether it was throwing their
coats, whatever was going on, they were going crazy that day
because wow, it's a party celebration and here comes in a
famous person and so they're celebrating and getting all
caught up in it. It wasn't a holy thing.
It wasn't something that they did religiously.
It was just a spontaneous celebration and what was
happening here is a crowd response.
When you're in a crowd, it's easy to get a crowd excited, and
we like to be in crowds that are excited.
That's why people like sports events, concerts.
You like to get together with a bunch of people who are on our
side for your team. You're cheering, you're excited
because why? Even if they're not winning, you
like to cheer. It's exciting.
Of course you wanted to win because everybody wants to get
excited together. And that's what's happening here
on this particular week as Jesus is coming into the holy city.
But, you know, it didn't stay in that exciting atmosphere.
He came to chapter 27, which would have been Thursday going
on to Friday. And what happened here is the
religious leaders who were in the crowd started persuading
them. And because it was just the
crowd, people could be persuaded.
Church what happened is Jesus Christ had been arrested.
They had the religious people brought him before the political
leader, which was the Roman governor and the chief priests
and elders persuaded that multitude that day that they
should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus because what had
happened is the Roman governor had Jesus standing there and
it's like, hey, this guy hasn't done anything wrong.
I'll let you pick you can pick Jesus or you can pick this guy
named Barabbas. He's just a a thief and a robber
and everybody knows that you can pick which one you want to live.
But unfortunately, because it was just a crowd, the chief
priests were able to sway the crowd.
So the governor answered and said to them, which of the two
do you want me to release to you?
And they said, Barabbas Hilah said to them, what then shall I
do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?
And they all said to him, let him be crucified.
And the governor said, why? What evil has he done?
But they crowded all the more let him be crucified.
Wow. When things you always have to
remember is there's persuaders in the crowd, when everybody is
doing something, you know, we often times think we have
freedom of choice and often times we're just doing whatever
buddy else is doing. If you think you've made a
choice and you look around your world and say, hey, this is the
same choice everybody's making have, you know, it's a crowd
response and it's not always bad.
Like I said, whether it's fashion or what we think is in
style or what kind of fun we want to get involved in, as long
as it's within the limits of divine prerogative, if you
would. But the important thing we
always have to understand is there's persuaders, there's
marketers, there's people wanting you to take their
position. And that's in the political
realm, that's in the religious realm, that's in every different
realm that you're a part of. And they want to sway you.
But church, if we're going to live with wisdom in this day, we
live, we have to understand it's time for us to have a vote in
the right way. Amen.
A lot of times, and I've heard this, I've seen it on websites
where people are talking YouTube and and they'll say, well, you
know, if your preacher is not preaching this and they'll talk
about some political discussion, you should just change churches
because they need to be doing this.
Of course I'd like to send them a letter, which I don't, which
is you need to have people in your church change churches
buddy, because I'm not here to talk politics.
I'm here to talk Jesus. Give me my praise on that chart.
Now it certainly should affect your politics or whatever you do
should affect your way you spend money.
But see, my job is to minister to your spiritual man so that in
your thinking, your thinking the right thing, not the wrong
thing. And when you come here to the
church, you need to learn the words, you need to learn about
sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Why?
Because my job isn't tell you to tell you what to do.
My job is to help you become a person who can make spiritual
choices. And just like a father who would
never let their kids grow up to make choices, so the church
should think the same way. Our job is to give people the
right to make their choices with the hope that they're going to
make the right choices. That's why this scripture says,
however we speak wisdom among those who are what?
I'm going to say that again, however we speak wisdom among
those who are what church? Let Mount Zion be known as the
House of maturity. Amen.
Not the wisdom of the age, nor of the rulers of this age who
are coming to nothing, but we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for
our glory, which none of the rulers of this age no knew.
For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. Now one of the sad things about
the Easter week is only Jesus is the one that started and ended
in what he was supposed to be doing.
Makes sense. Political crowd had their group,
the religious crowd had their group.
But even Jesus's own disciples like Peter, they weren't with
him all the way through. How many?
Glad he set the example for us. And he doesn't point the finger
back and say, hey, you losers, where were you?
But he's on the other side saying, hey, look where I am,
come and follow me. Hallelujah.
I have a plan for your life. I have wisdom for you.
You don't know about how was it that God was with the jubilant
scene coming in and Jesus was also in the scene where they're
saying crucify him because he's God and in the end, his purposes
are always established. And just like the Scriptures, we
don't even always understand it. How could crucifixion be a part
of his plan? How could suffering fit in?
Perhaps you're going through a situation, you say, how could
God be in this? Well, there's some hidden
wisdom. And he says if you'll let him,
he'll open your eyes so you can see.
This is Pastor Lauren Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.
We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect
with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and
following us on social media. God bless you.