Will you remain standing with me out of respect for God's word? And turn to John chapter 12. John chapter 12, and we'll read this morning 12 through 19 as we take a break from our study in James and turn our thoughts to these great redemptive historical events which form the bedrock and foundation of our salvation. John chapter 12, beginning with verse 12, here is the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God. On the next day, the large crowd, who had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him and began to shout, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. And Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it as it was written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey's coat. These things His disciples did not understand at first. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him. So the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb, raised him from the dead, continued to testify about him. But for this reason also the people went out to meet him because they had heard that he had performed this sign. And so the Pharisees said to one another, you see that you're not doing any good. Look, the world has gone after him. Let's ask God's help to understand his word. Almighty and ever-living God, in your tender love for your people, you sent forth your Son, Jesus Christ, to take upon himself our nature and to suffer the death of the cross. Mercifully grant now, O Lord, that we may walk in the way of his suffering and also share in the power of his resurrection. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. You may be seated. Okay, I hesitate using the example that I'm about to use because I don't want it to trivialize something that is substantial here in our passage. Namely, these redemptive historical events here recorded in John chapter 12. But I'm going to go ahead and use it because I think it's very helpful to illustrate something that is crucial to this passage, which is misunderstanding. And the thing that I'm going to use to illustrate this is the problem of watching a movie or a TV show or a game with somebody who's already seen it before and knows the ending. That's terribly annoying to do that, in my view. And I get extremely frustrated when I watch those kinds of things when other people have seen it, especially when they try to cue me in throughout the show or the movie or game and say, oh, by the way, pay careful attention to this because this is going to matter to something that happens later on in the movie. And most people just don't have the restraint or self-discipline not to do that. So you'd rather just not watch it with people who've seen it before. Because what they're doing when they're saying, oh, be careful, watch this, is they're framing your understanding of what's about to happen. And that can happen very subtly. They can point you to so-called cues which help them understand and now the conclusion of the movie or event or TV show or game or whatever is sort of framed according to how they've understood it. Just to put a historical concrete example to that, I'll never forget watching the Olympics in 1980 and the U.S. hockey team playing the Soviets. And for some frustrating and maddening reason, at the break in between the periods, the second and third period, for some reason our local sports forecaster got on the the airwaves and told us that the United States had won before we watched that final third period. And if you knew that before you watched the end of that, it is forever going to reshape how you see the dramatic events unfold in the third period. You just can't watch it the same way as somebody who was standing on top of the couch cheering as they watched this not knowing the ending. You see, knowing the ending, at least as you think it should be understood, distorts the understanding of the things as they unfold. Now, a perfect example of that is what you see in verse 16. Now I'm going to come back and I'll make this connection more clear, but here's the thing. It says, these things His disciples did not understand at first. That's a very intentional, authorial comment here on what's going on. Because what John is doing is he's talking about himself included. Watching Jesus come into Jerusalem. with the crowds waving palm branches at Passover, shouting Psalm 118, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Because everybody watching that knows exactly what's supposed to happen next, if they've read the book. That is the Old Testament. Not the New Testament, but the Old Testament. You see, that is part of the problem of understanding here in John chapter 12 on this glorious Palm Sunday triumphal entry event of Christ. Absolutely everyone witnessing this misunderstood it. Interestingly enough, we're going to see in a moment that the only people who actually have this phrase, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, and actually understands it, are the babies. The babies, the little children of Israel. Fascinating story. Let's see how it unfolds. And first of all, as we work our way into this narrative, we need to set up a few layers of context. The first layer of context is this very powerful testimony to the miracle here of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Now this was one of those pivot points in the history of Christ's public ministry. It's recorded for you back in John 11, and we're not going to comb over the details, we're going to sweep over them. Because it's a pretty well-known story. Part of what happens is that Mary and Martha send word to Jesus, who is ministering somewhere by the Jordan, that Lazarus is sick unto death. And Jesus does what is quite unexpected. He just takes the news in stride and keeps on doing what he's doing. And it's not until he's quite confident that Lazarus has died that he finally cuts off his work and goes back to Bethany, where Lazarus' home is, and where Mary and Martha are. And, of course, he's greeted with tears and questions. Why didn't you come earlier? And you're well aware of the narrative. Jesus finally is taken out to the tomb. And we have this famous incident where Jesus looks over the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, and he cries, he weeps. And then he powerfully calls Lazarus forth from death, saying, Lazarus, come forth. Now, what's so fascinating about this miracle is so many of the miracles performed by Christ were done in a corner, you could say. The people who received the blessing, quite often, were not in public eye, and so people weren't witnessing a lot of it. Some were, but not a lot. But in this case, the whole community was there. It was like the county fair. Everybody was there. And now Bethany is just about five minutes outside of Jerusalem. And so this news spreads, not just across Bethany and the hillsides, but even into Jerusalem. And the testimony and the fame of Christ's name explodes. And so you're told in chapter 11, verse 45, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what He had done believed in Him. Now don't get thrown off the scent there. Believe needs to be in quotation marks. Because it's a superficial belief. But everybody is really sitting up and paying attention to this man named Jesus from Nazareth. Because you cannot deny the miracle of somebody who is raised from the dead four days after he was declared dead. Now the response of the religious authorities, the Sanhedrin, is a second layer of context. And it's crucial. Because what they decided to do was the sensible thing. Kill him. And you have to do that if you're the religious leader of Israel because of a couple of reasons. Number one is they don't like the spotlight and the attention being taken from them and put on this extremely charismatic, wonderful, genuine guy. But the other thing is this. Romans don't like religious, charismatic leaders running around the hillsides of Palestine. And I say Romans because they were the ones who had the rule over Jerusalem and the Jews and Palestine at this time. And they just did not tolerate revolt. And they get very nervous when thousands of people all of a sudden shift direction. And they start following and lining up behind a very charismatic individual who's full of the zeal of the Lord. And so they say, hey look, if we don't take this guy out, Rome will come in here and take away our religious authority and banish us from our seats and kick us out of power. And so as I said, they did the sensible thing. They just planned to have him arrested and put to death legally. That way he couldn't be a martyr, he couldn't be a problem. They could wash their hands of all of the influence of this guy. Now, knowledge of this spread around, and so people knew there was a bounty on the head of Christ. 55, chapter 11. Notice this. The Passover of the Jews was near. And many people went up to Jerusalem out of the country for the Passover to purify themselves, and they were seeking for Jesus. They were saying to one another as they stood in the temple, what do you think? Do you think He'll come to the feast? You see, they're aware of the bounty on his head, and that's the third layer of context that really informs this passage. Widespread group of numbers of people following him because of the fame of his miracles. Widespread knowledge of the antagonism, the opposition of the ruling authority. That's going to question whether he's going to come to this Passover event. But you see, everybody knows that in spite of this and in view of all of these things, if Jesus really does come, it means something's going to happen. Something big is going to happen. So, that brings us to the Passover context. We know it's Passover. Verse 55 tells us the Passover is near. In chapter 12, verse 1, we have a time indicator, very specific, saying 6 days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany. Bethany is where Lazarus lives, where he was raised from the dead, with an earshot of Jerusalem. Six days out, that means it's late Friday. You have to understand this is according to how the Jews reckon time from sunset to sunset, you see. But it's six days out, and everybody is full of excitement. And I want to just stop with that before I move on. To just take note, just a moment longer, of this time stamp that's on the text. 55, Passover is near. 12, one, six days out. 12, 12, it says the next day. That means the next day after Sabbath, which would have been, Jesus gets to Bethany late Friday afternoon. As soon as the sun goes down, it's Sabbath. And so the next day is literally Sunday morning. That's why we call it Palm Sunday. All I wanna do is point out here is that we need to pay attention to the time indicators. Now I know I've gone over this before at other times, but it is just so critical. It is just so critical. I'm gonna take a moment to walk you through just a little bit of evidence because it's crucial to grasp hold of and to know and to be able to talk about. There were only two occasions within Jesus' public ministry when Passover fell on a Friday. That's either A.D. 30 or A.D. 33. Now, we're very confident that Jesus was put to death on A.D. 30, and the reason why we are is this. If you go back to John chapter 2, which is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry after he's been baptized by John, he's in Jerusalem, in the temple, and he is observing Passover. You'll also remember that he cleaned out the temple. And after he cleaned out the temple, there's a reference there, a time reference, which is 40 and 6 years it took to build this temple. Now we know that temple construction began in 19 BC. You just add 46 to that and what do you get? 27. So he's there observing Passover there, and then John records three more Passovers, including this one here, that Jesus comes to. That nails it down to this. This triumphal entry here on this Palm Sunday happened in A.D. 30. It's dateable. It's historical fact. So also is the death of Christ. It's dateable to A.D. 30. Now, we ought to take consolation from that, specifically because the apostles did. The apostles are constantly proclaiming that the faith which they testify to, the Christ they testify to, the events which under Gerd reinforce and give all meaning to redemption, they're all historical. Peter tells us in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 16, we haven't followed cunningly devised fables in proclaiming to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's historically standing in a category all by itself. The religious people of that day all had religions based upon cleverly devised fables. The word for fable there is mutoi, myth. Non-historical, non-actual events based upon non-people. And yet the masses all confessed these religious truths and their lives were absolutely, fundamentally structured around them. And Peter here says, just be aware of the fact that everything that we have said about this Christ is true and that it is rooted in history and in time and in space. Now that's important for a lot of reasons, but one reason why it's important at this time of year is because all of the people who are supposed to know better, all of the people who are smart, all of the geniuses at this time of the year are going to line up this week, and they're going to be interviewed on TV, and they're going to be on National Geographic, and they're going to be in Time Magazine, and they're going to be on Huffington Post, and they're going to be wherever you can find them, and all of the smart people are going to be telling you people who believe in Christ that there's no truth to it. It's just all shrouded in mystery, kernels of truth somewhere maybe, but most of it just myth. You follow, they will say, cleverly devised fables. Well, that testimony itself is fictional. And you know what? Our entire faith rests upon these events being true and factual and historical and happening in time and space. You know, the thing that the world hates about Christianity is not Jesus. The world doesn't hate Jesus at all. In fact, they're quite captivated by Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth is a very interesting guy, they will tell you. The thing that the world hates about Christianity is that it claims to possess absolute truth. In fact, the claims of Christianity are so daring and so bold and so brazen that the Christians and the apostles and the church will say, just go look at the tomb. Look at the facts. You see, Christianity rises or falls with the truth of these narratives. We did the very daring and bold thing of saying that there's no error in this record, period. And we'll say this, either the Bible is true and man is a liar, or man is true and the Bible is full of lies. There's no middle ground. See, if that dichotomizing that the world just hates. How can you be so sure? Well, because the Bible claims to be nothing less than the inspired testimony to real facts, real people, and real events. And, you know, we're not bringing these out of nowhere. They're in our passage this morning. Six days before the Passover, then the next day, Sunday morning, It purports to be valid, real, historical testimony. If your faith is wavering this morning, you need to cling to the inspired record. That's it. If your faith is wavering this morning about some of these things, cling to the Bible. You don't have any hope without this inspired testimony. You're not going to reason your way into assurance of faith. Come back now to the action, though. We have this backdrop, Lazarus being raised from the dead, the Sanhedrin with a bounty upon Christ, and Passover time is near. Now look at verse 12, and the crowd. On the next day the large crowd had come to the feast. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees. Couple of things that are just worth noting here. It's a large crowd. And estimates, just lowball estimates for how many pilgrims would descend upon Jerusalem at this time of year. Lowball estimates are in the hundreds of thousands. So overnight, this town just is filled to overflowing with people who don't live there, who are now staying there for this feast. And when you get big crowds around, the buzz generates pretty fast. And I want you to notice that the crowds who are coming out to meet Christ are from Jerusalem. You can see that from verse 17 and 18. Remember I told you about these people who were believing in Jesus because of the raising of Lazarus. Were running around Jerusalem, whipping up excitement. Spreading the testimony of Christ's miracle. Verse 17 says, they continued to testify. They're hitting every corner. They say, hey, do you know about this Jesus guy? And there's nothing like an eyewitness testimony to really generate excitement. Somebody says, I saw it with my own two eyes. And so verse 18 says, for this reason also the people who went out to meet him because they heard he had performed this sign. So these vast crowds are coming out of town electric. They're coming out electric. They know Jesus in Bethany, and they know if he's in Bethany, he's coming to Passo. By the way, people in this crowd as well had probably been there when Jesus publicly and visibly healed blind Bartimaeus on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. He was standing outside of town, and he was crying out, Son of David, have mercy upon me. And Jesus healed him of blindness. You have people in this crowd from Galilee who've heard of the testimony of miracles and certainly heard of Jesus' teaching. They know that the hillsides are abuzz with the knowledge and the news of Christ. So those are the people here who are coming out. They are excited people. And they do what excited people do. They cut down palm branches. Look at verse 13. Took branches of palm trees. Now, this is a very important indicator of what's rattling around in their minds. palm trees, palm branches. The other synoptic accounts don't mention palms. Matthew 21, 8 says they were cutting branches. Mark 11, 8 says they spread leafy branches they'd cut from the fields. But John's the only one who mentions palms. And the significance of palms is in what they symbolize. They symbolize nationalism. D.A. Carson commenting on this, he says, the poem signaled nationalistic hopes that a messianic liberator was arising on the sea. You have these people who are excited about this raising of Lazarus. You have people who probably saw the healing of blind Bartimaeus. You have large crowds now, full of enthusiasm and zeal, going out there, cutting down these palms and waving them. They believe this guy is the Messiah. Then you add to it what they're shouting. Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That's Psalm 118, a psalm that was filled with messianic hope and expectation. In fact, it means save now. And the way it was interpreted, understood by the people of God at this time within Israel, is it become to be identified with the arrival of Messiah. This is all very fascinating. waving palm branches, a sign of their nationalistic zeal. Time of Passover is here, which already has people excited about national and messianic expectations. You have eyewitness accounts. And now add one other thing in there. They've all read the book. They've all read the Old Testament. They've all read the prophecies of Messiah. They know that one is going to be raised up to the throne of David. They know this. They all know that as Jesus makes His way from Bethany to Jerusalem, the national liberation has come. I cued you into this arrangement of pieces in the narrative already. The shouts in the air. Then 14, Jesus hops on a donkey. And the disciples looking at that and in their thought bubbles is an enormous question mark. Huh? Take a moment. A couple of things are interesting about that. Number one, pilgrims don't ride from Bethany into Jerusalem at Passover. They walk. That's point number one. They walk. And they're full of shouts of joy in the Psalms as they make their way into Jerusalem now. But Jesus had made previous preparations. We know this from Mark chapter 11. He told his disciples that they were going to go get this donkey that had never been sat on before. And the guy said, what are you taking it for? But Jesus says, my master has need of him. And that's going to be all that's needed. And so when you see Jesus now hop on this donkey in verse 14, it says, Jesus finding a young donkey and sat on it. You've got to understand this, this right here, this action is extremely intentional on the part of Christ. He is openly disclosing his identity. He is unveiling it for everyone to see. And this, by the way, is a major change in policy. A lot of times in the Gospels, especially the Gospels of Mark, Jesus is running around saying, shh. Every time he teaches something, every time he does a miracle, shh. He's trying to keep it under wraps. But now, as he gets on the donkey, and he does the unusual thing of riding from Bethany to Jerusalem, this is Jesus saying, I'm here! It's very intentional. And by the way, John tells us he's conforming himself to a script, a messianic script. Zechariah 9.9, Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, seated in a donkey's coat. And you say, well surely, with all of the excitement in the air, with all of the miracles in the backdrop, with all of the expectation, and then this unmistakable, this unmistakable symbolic journey from Bethany to Jerusalem on a donkey, everyone will understand what is going on, right? The answer is no. The reason was because everybody had misread the text. The expectation was that Jesus comes riding into town, not on a donkey, but on a Clydesdale. And not gentle and meek, but with a sword in His hand. And again, I point out that the disciples, seeing all this, just didn't understand. That brings us to our next point, which is the failed understanding. The failed understanding. They felt the excitement. It was palpable. They knew of the miracles. They were there. They'd read the Bible. They were full of messianic expectation. But when they see him riding on a donkey, that doesn't conform to how they understand the ending to be written. And they don't understand. And what's interesting about that verb is the other time this comes up in John's gospel is in the case of Nicodemus in John chapter 3. And Nicodemus comes to Christ saying, Hey, I got to come at night, you know, keep your appearances up. But don't think that I'm not thinking there's something unusual about you. And remember what Jesus said to him. How can you be the teacher of Israel and not understand these things? See, he's captivated and trapped in his own blindness. He doesn't understand. The disciples don't understand. The crowds who are waving the palm branches, that is a symbol of their misunderstanding. Because they're asking for a different Jesus. No one is understanding here at all except for, turn with me, to Matthew chapter 21. And I'll tell you, I love this when it happens when I study the Word of God, that I fall off my seat when I find something out that I hadn't really seen before. And this was one of those things that made me fall off my seat last week. In fact, it made me change up my entire sermon. I wasn't even going to preach on this. And then I read this and I said, wow. This is wonderful. Remember the phrase that the crowd's chanting as Jesus rides into town. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Even the King of Israel. Well, Matthew 21 tells us that Jesus, at the end of that journey, anticlimactically peaked into the temple, shrugged his shoulders, went back to Bethany. But the next day, Matthew 21 here, we're told that he comes in and he starts turning over tables, beginning in verse 12. He entered the table, he drove out all those who were selling in the temple, overturned their tables, the money changers, and the seats of those selling dove. He cries out that this house shall be called a house of prayer, but you're making it a robber's den. And now we see the blind and the lame who are coming to him for healing. But look at verse 15. All the while Jesus is turning over tables and driving out all of the vendors and so forth, and the blind and the lame are coming here. There's this picture of the chief priests and the scribes and the teachers just watching. And then it says here, when the scribes saw the wonderful things, the miracles, And then they heard this, the children were shouting in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David. Remember, that's the precise same phrase that the crowds were shouting the day before from Psalm 118. And when you pack on to that son of David, it indicates messianic expectation and interpretation. And so the scribes hearing this from the mouth of babies and small children, they said, do you hear what these children are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read? Psalm 8.2, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise for yourself. Jesus is saying, these babies, these covenant children perceive my identity. It's just like it happened in Psalm 8. You know, the psalmist poses these babies here over against the foes of God. And only the babies are able to perceive the cosmic rule and sovereign authority of the Lord over the heavens and the earth. And here Jesus is pulling that out of there and He's applying it to Himself in this situation. And He's saying, only the babies get it. Only the babies perceive He is Messiah and the nature of His messianic kingdom and the nature of His messianic salvation. The people who are untaught, the ones who are untutored, the ones who don't even have the capacity to read the book. They're the ones who are being raised up by God to cry out to the real testimony of Christ. John Calvin's comment here is brilliant. He said, God needs no other orators to proclaim His power than mere infants who are still hanging on their mother's breasts. He doesn't need anything else. That's the whole point. Everybody else who's smart. Everybody else who's supposed to know. Everybody else who's seen the miracles. Everybody else who's read the books. They're supposed to know. They don't know. They all misunderstood. The babies know. The babies know. They've been raised up by God to declare the truth about Christ and point to His glory. But the disciples who've been with Jesus for three years, who've been explicitly taught time and time and time again that Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die, they don't understand. That brings us down to what this is all about. And we get to what this text is all about for us in the latter part of verse 16. John first says the disciples did not understand, but when Jesus was glorified, they remembered these things were written of Him. You see, the significance of the text for us is not the people waving the palm branches or crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. The significance of the text is in the post-Palm Sunday ministry of Jesus Christ. They couldn't understand until He was glorified. John tells us in a parenthetical note back in John chapter 7 verse 37. Jesus had been teaching in the temple at a particular feast. And then He stands up at the end of His teaching and He says that he who thirsts should come to Him. Anyone who believes in Me, He said, from the innermost being will flow rivers of living water. So anybody who is thirsty is to come unto Him to drink. But then John quickly clarifies in verse 39. that he spoke of the prophet and he had not yet been poured out because Christ had not been glorified. This is exactly what John is alluding to here now in verse 16. Why don't they understand until Jesus was glorified? Well, the answer is in what is connected with the glorification. What is connected with the glorification is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit who gives life and illuminates the Word. And the proof that they remembered and then believed is Acts 2. Peter accounting for this speaking in tongues, and these strange events, and the odd things that the disciples are doing. Being so misunderstood that they're accused of being drunk at midday. That's not the problem. The issue here is that Christ, who is the Lord, who ascended into heaven, has been glorified, and He's poured out the Holy Spirit, which accounts for these things that are happening now. You see, the significance of our passage is not painting pictures of a cute little donkey. The significance of our passage is the post-Palm Sunday ministry of Christ, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, who has received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and has poured that Spirit out so that we don't manifest the same ignorance and spiritual lifelessness of the crowds. beginning to apply this text this morning to us people of God, the first thing that we need to think about here in connection with all of the ideas, is that we need to watch out. We need to watch out and to resist the impulse of recreating Christ in our own image, and according to our own wisdom, and according to our own felt needs. That's precisely what they have done here. In spite of all the testimony, in spite of all the miracles, in spite of all the teaching, in spite of all the prophecy, they're waving palm branches. Because they want Christ, not to die on a cross, but to take up a sword. Brian Stauffergan, quoting a book called, Hunting the Divine Fox, It tells us how the author makes the case that the typical American paradigm of the Messiah isn't Jesus, but it's Superman. And the reason is because Americans don't want a Savior who would do the stupid thing of dying and then rising again, but of a Savior who never died. As I thought about that, I said, that's not all that American after all. Isn't that precisely the problem of these Jews here? Isn't that exactly what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.22? He says, indeed the Jews ask for signs, the Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness. We've got to watch out for trying to make Christ in our own image. Because when we do that, we'll end up making a Jesus who's not about a Savior of sin, but a Savior who just supplies satisfaction. Because you see, if we were in the position of being in that crowd and cheering on Christ, we would be in their shoes doing precisely what they were cheering for, which was national liberation and conquest. All the while, what we really needed, and we should have been seeking. was a Savior who would institute His kingdom, not on a horse, but by the humble means of a cross. And the reason why we need that Savior is because of our sin. And people have got the good news about the post Palm Sunday ministry of Jesus Christ is not just that He symbolically rode a donkey to signify the nature of His kingdom, but that He actually went the whole way. going to the cross in order to lift our sins off of us and to take it upon himself that we would have salvation. That is the first aspect of the post Palm Sunday ministry of Christ to us is he followed through. He followed through, not just symbolically saying it's about a donkey and gentleness. but it was about a cross and he died in our place. The second thing that we learned from this passage, and I take this from the blindness, and I'd even argue the willful blindness of the apostles, or rather these disciples here who later become the apostles, is that we're blind, we're blind if the spirit of God does not illuminate the word to our hearts. It's so striking that everybody was wrong except the babies. Everybody who had the scripture was wrong. Why? Because they lacked the illumination of the Holy Spirit and they filled in the blanks with their own understanding of how they thought the text read. If we're to escape the darkness of our own false interpretations of Scripture, we need this post Palm Sunday ministry of Christ to us, which is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and a spirit of illumination and wisdom and understanding. We need to be impressed this morning, people of God, that this Bible right here is a closed book to us without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We're called, yes, to diligently study the Word of God, to cut a straight course in it, as Paul says, to read it, to pour over it, to meditate, to reflect, to seek to understand, to be taught. But this book is a closed book. This book is a closed book without the help of the Holy Spirit. And so it's for that reason that every single Sunday before the reading and the preaching of God's Word, we together as a congregation sing a song of illumination. That's why they're there. God put them in His divinely instituted, inspired manual of praise so that God's people would be led, as they sing these, to seek God's help. To understand His Word. That's why we sing them. And that's why we pray for the help of the Holy Spirit before we interpret the Word. Because we're helpless without the work of the Holy Spirit. John Calvin again says, it's not even enough. It's not even enough that the Word of God shine on us if the Spirit does not also enlighten our eyes, which otherwise we would be blind amidst the clearest light. We would be blind amidst the clearest light of the Word without the help of the Holy Spirit. Let's not forget this when we study the Word of God, people. Let's ask for God's help through the Holy Spirit. And finally, I think what we learn from this passage is that we're spiritually helpless. We're spiritually helpless without the ministry of the glorified Christ. Sometimes people think that if we just had access to some visible public miracles, we could really get busy winning souls. If we could maybe just take people back and transport them into the sandals of the palm branch waving crowd, who some of them had witnessed the miracles of the raising of Lazarus and the healing of blind Bartimaeus. If we could just get access to something really powerful like this, then we could really make progress. I'll never forget the debater who one time said that he would be quite open to believing in God if the podium which was right before him at that moment was suspended in air and he could see that it wasn't done with any tricks or devices or ropes holding it up. Then he would be ready to believe. That's just self-flattery. That's just self-flattery. If anybody was in a position to believe, it's these people here. If the miracles were enough, it's these people here. If it was the miracles and testimony, it's the disciples. If it's the miracles, the testimony and understanding of the Word, it's the disciples. But you see, We're spiritually helpless. Spiritually helpless without this Post Palm Sunday ministry of Christ by the Spirit. Because no one comes to Christ unless the Holy Spirit drags. That's just it. No one comes unless the Holy Spirit drags. No one comes unless the Holy Spirit regenerates. No one comes unless the Holy Spirit did what He did in the heart of Lydia, which says He cut right through it. And no one comes except for what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Unless you are born again. Unless you are born again. Unless you are born again. You cannot see the Kingdom of God. You see why we need the post Palm Sunday ministry of Jesus Christ? We would be the crowds. We would be the disciples at best, scratching our heads, not understanding. But you see, the good news from our passage this morning is this note about when Jesus was glorified. Because it tells us that the key to the application of this passage to us is not the donkey ride, but the going to the cross, the rising from the dead, and then being received in the glory. so that Christ would pour out this Holy Spirit that we would be born again. Only reason why we have faith in our hearts this morning, people of God, is because of this post Palm Sunday ministry of Christ. And we all rejoice in what Christ has done to us as he is seated in glory. Amen.