SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/4/2023 7:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The
Epitome of Praise”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:8-9
Message of the verses: “8 And most of the
multitude spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches
from the trees, and spreading them in the road. 9 And the multitudes going before
Him, and those who followed after were crying out, saying, "Hosanna to the
Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the
highest!’”
Let us begin with what was one voice from the crowd
who “were crying out, saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE
WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!’” John MacArthur states “The Hebrew word
hosanna is an exclamatory pleas meaning ‘save now.” When one first looks at the meaning of this
word one might think that the crowd was looking for salvation, but that was not
the case, and I think that as we move on in Matthew and see another crowd,
perhaps many of the same people in that crowd were saying to crucify Him. These people were not looking to be saved
from their sins, but to be saved from the Romans who were rulers over
them. They were looking for a political
Messiah, and One who would save them from their sins. The Jews were about to celebrate Passover,
which commemorated the Lord’s miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage. There could be no better occasion than having
the Lord’s Anointed, the Messiah, to make the ultimate and final deliverance of
His people from tyranny.
MacArthur
writes “Although the shouts of the multitude were entirely appropriate and
were, in fact, fulfillment of prophecy the people had no idea of the true
significance of what they were doing, much less of what Jesus would soon do on
the cross in their behalf. They neither
understood the Lord nor themselves. He
intentionally did not enter Jerusalem with a powerful retinue of soldiers who
would fight for Him to the death. He
entered instead with a ragtag multitude of ordinary people, most of whom
despite their loud proclamation of His greatness, would soon turn against Him,
and none of whom would stand by Him.”
Now
we can see that in verse nine that they certainly had the right title for the
Messiah as He was the Son of David, but as mentioned they were crying out to a
Messiah’s deliverance, pleading, in effect, “Save us not great Messiah! Save us Now!
The crowd was quoting from popular praise psalm from what is called the
Hallel (Psalms 113-118), in particular Psalm 118, which was also a psalm of
deliverance, sometimes called the conqueror’s psalm. It was almost two centuries earlier, the Jews
had hailed Simon Maccabees with the same psalm after he delivered the Acra from
Syrian domination.
6/4/2023
8:15 AM
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