Hope Is Rising

[0:00] So the Bible reading is Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 to 11, and it reads, Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey, tied and a colt with her.

[0:27] Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

[0:53] The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

[1:10] And the crowd that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

[1:21] Hosanna in the highest. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this? And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

[1:34] And friends, Stephen will put up one main heading and then another one from John Bunyan, a statement by the great writer of Pilgrim's Progress.

[1:50] How authentic is your hope for tomorrow? Hope's been mentioned a lot recently.

[2:00] From the highest, as it were, politician in his office, whoever he may be in America, wherever, here, whatever. Hope, hope, hope, hope, hope.

[2:14] But, to me, it just sounds like optimism. And that's not the same thing as hope. At the same time, there isn't such thing as a hopeless person.

[2:27] I honestly believe that with all my heart. I don't care who the people are, how bad their sins, or how damaging their backgrounds, or what their reputation is, how impure is their language, whatever.

[2:41] There's not such a thing as a hopeless person when Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. And that included them. Now, just imagine, if you were what society regarded today as a hopeless person, you would say, it's probably my own fault, but I have no time for it.

[3:07] Jesus Christ is time for everybody. If he was not prepared to have time for everybody, why would he come here?

[3:20] Why would he put himself through crucifixion according to the Roman way of punishing people in his day? Why?

[3:33] If he doesn't have time for everybody. What is your hope authentic? Is it? What does authentic mean?

[3:48] Well, it means trustworthy. Can you trust the hope you've got? Are you sure? Kidding yourself on?

[4:03] Well, my father and my mother told me to do this and everything would be fine. Come on. Come on. Come on. Authentic means trustworthy.

[4:17] It means genuine. It means real. And it means that that authentic hope isn't based on some doubtful origin that somebody told you about or you've read something somewhere or you've read something somewhere that says this is what you should, how you should live optimistically.

[4:42] Make this the basis of your hope. Authentic means trustworthy, genuine, real, attested hope. Not based on some doubtful origin.

[4:56] How authentic is your hope? Do you really want to live to 150? I hope I live to 150. Really?

[5:11] My, Grace and I were on Zoom with my two granddaughters. One's 22, the other's 17. One's in Hereford, the other one's at Glasgow Uni. And over Zoom the other night, Nicole, who's turned out a beautiful woman, she said, Papa, in uni, we're always told, listen to this, I'd never have thought on this.

[5:40] This is right up to date in Glasgow Uni. You're living longer now than you ever lived before. You can do lots of things now people couldn't do before.

[5:50] Well, I would never have thought that. The way she said it, didn't she, Grace? You could get your English degree in Glasgow and then you can join what they call HR, Human Resources System, and there's hundreds of open doors to a person with a English classic degree from Glasgow University, for example.

[6:16] So the universe is yours. people are living longer than ever before. But where is the hope in my granddaughter's life?

[6:34] What is it based on? Based on the word of a lecturer in Glasgow University, on a book he's written. Really?

[6:46] Really? I pray, as grace does for all our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. How authentic is your hope?

[6:58] hope. The title for today, Hope is Rising. That idea of hope will be carried on through the services for the next three or four weeks with different preachers.

[7:11] Can you put up the main statement, Stephen? The prophesied authority of the Lord Jesus Christ is the authentic hope for the world.

[7:30] Now, don't believe me. These are my words, but these are actually based on the Bible. because they are, the Bible being God's word, is authentic, genuine, real, revealed, attested, not from some doubtful origin.

[7:55] It's authentic, the authentic hope. There isn't any other, friends, I would say to you this day, on Palm Sunday. I was 22 before I realised that.

[8:07] You wouldn't have found me dead in church. The meaning of life. You go on to all sorts of things today on the telly, or on your phone, or on your iPad, or wherever.

[8:23] People are talking about the meaning of life. As though somehow or other, by some major change in the mentality of man, and the spiritual character of man, we've somehow found a way ahead.

[8:42] And the world is in a swamp, in my opinion. It's in a swamp. Quicksand is pulling us all down.

[8:54] And it's the quicksand of unashamed sinning. And once your feet are in quicksand, somebody's going to have to rescue you, because you won't be able to rescue yourself.

[9:16] The prophesied authority of the Lord Jesus Christ is the authentic hope for the world. what Ruth read for us in Matthew 21.

[9:29] What is Jesus doing when he comes to Jerusalem? It's the beginning of the Passover week. What happens when he comes to Israel?

[9:43] Prophecy is fulfilled. That's what happens. Because God's word, he said, will never return to me empty.

[9:54] Isaiah. 750 years before this event. It shall never return to me empty. It was being fulfilled the day he entered Jerusalem, as it was being fulfilled when he was conceived in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit of God.

[10:16] It was being fulfilled because it's not a human word. I want to read you something. This is a photocopy from an international magazine I get every week. Listen to this.

[10:28] These are people you all hear about. Every one of them hate their own work. Let's do this. That's not the case with God. Listen to this. Thomas Mann's line about a writer being, quote, somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people, certainly applied to Douglas Adams.

[10:51] It may or may not have consoled Adams to know that he was just one of many writers to have come to resent their most famous creations. Did you know what's, listen to this, famous people you know about who hated their own work.

[11:10] Arthur Conan Doyle famously tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes. You wouldn't think that, would you? He hated what he created.

[11:24] He couldn't stand Sherlock Holmes as a detective. He was the one that created him. Listen to this. Agatha Christie persisted with Hercule Poirot because the book sold so well.

[11:46] But privately, and you may agree with her here, regarded the character as, quote, Hercule Poirot, detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric little creep.

[12:06] this is the character she created. Now, because it made money, she carried on making them. She couldn't stand out what she had created.

[12:18] I'm not finished. W.H. Oden, he went so far as to his own, one of his own known poems, September 1st, 1939.

[12:31] That was the name of it. he allowed it to be included in a 1964 anthology of poetry, along with a few others he disliked, but only with the printed caveat, quote, Mr. W.H.

[12:48] Oden considers these five poems to be trash, which he, and of which he is ashamed to ever have written.

[12:59] Now, can you imagine the amount of hours and work that went into these human classics? The creators hated them, but they made money and made them a reputation and gave them a living.

[13:21] That's not the case with God's word. Never do you find in God's word, prophet, priest, or king, and the Lord himself and the apostles that followed to do his work.

[13:33] Never do you ever hear them saying the word that God gave us. Oh, trash. Never. Never. Because they knew they were not of human origin.

[13:51] God's God's name. And the Bible authenticates itself. The comment from Paul to Timothy about the Old Testament scripture, which is the Hebrew Tanakh Bible, they didn't have a New Testament, he says all scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by God.

[14:16] No doubts, nothing about any, this is trash, I don't like what I've done, nothing about total sweetness from beginning to end by God's appointed human authors through the Holy Spirit of God as they're inspired.

[14:34] Now, if you put your hope in the word of God, then the object of your faith will emerge.

[14:46] it is not the scripture that saves you. Scripture doesn't save you because when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, what he knew was going to happen was based on the fact that all of Israel apart from the saved remnant who were always there, he knew their faith was in the established religion of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, and all the group that run the country, and that group were the biggest self-righteous people you could find.

[15:27] They were the ones who went to the Romans and said, help us get rid of him, will you? Jesus knew, but he also knew in his obedience the word of God must be fulfilled if you and I are going to be saved.

[15:46] if you look at that passage that Ruth read for us, it quotes the book of Zechariah to show us what is happening in Jerusalem that day at the beginning of the Passover week.

[16:00] And Zechariah 9 is quoted, the word of God is quoted, it's not questions, it's not trashed, the people are running down the street, the children are throwing branches, we all know what Palm Sunday is all about, but notice there's a question and it's only in Matthew, not Mark, Luke or John, you see this question, there it's there, in verse 10 of Matthew 21, who is this?

[16:31] Who is this? Now we sometimes get the impression Palm Sunday children with branches and all the things that go on with children Sunday school and it brings them up to see the things of the Lord, but there are people in the midst who are asking the question, who is this?

[16:51] Do you know what the answer is? See the answer? The answer is not biblical. That is a half measured answer.

[17:06] All it says is, the crowds answered, this is Jesus, Saviour, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee in the north.

[17:22] There's no mention of him being the Son of God. There's no mention of him being their Messiah, the Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah.

[17:32] Or in Greek, Christ, Jesus Christ. No mention of it. And that's why I ask you, where is your hope?

[17:44] Because you can become as religious as you like, and go to as many churches as you like, but if your hope is coming from some religious concern about whatever, or from whoever, or for whoever, you could be in the very same position as the people on Palm Sunday.

[18:06] Their faith was not well. It was in the established religion. Only the gracious faithful remnant that God was speaking through, as in the disciples of the Lord and various others, the vast majority of Israel, were prepared to shout Hallelujah!

[18:32] Yeah, crucify him, we'll have Barabbas. Now, is that hypocrisy or is that hypocrisy? Surely, in their souls, they must have memory, they must have thought, we can't crucify this man, we were praising his presence a week ago.

[18:56] No, oh no, political pressure. stroke religious power. And where is their hope?

[19:09] It's not in the Messiah. And thank God, he brought the Messiah to Israel, not just for their sake that they may be forgiven, but for your sake and my sake, because it's through Israel the gospel comes to the Gentiles.

[19:30] the prophesied authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the authentic hope for the world.

[19:44] All the politicians and the kings and the queens are just the same as you and I. They were born in their mother's womb, and they were put together there by God. Nobody else.

[19:58] Whatever you do, don't put your hope on perishing people. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he knew what was coming.

[20:17] but let me take you to Zechariah. Zechariah 9, quoted by the worshippers on the streets in Jerusalem.

[20:35] Notice what they missed out. Notice what they missed out from the text of their own scripture. it was a celebration.

[20:53] Zechariah 9, 9, the prophecy of Zechariah, probably 500 years before Jesus was born. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion.

[21:06] Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you. Notice the first things it says about him. Righteous and victorious. they didn't shout that.

[21:19] Why did they not shout that? Lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

[21:30] So they put the cloths on the animals and he sat on the young one, mother being there to keep the young one in place. God says in prophecy as he gives this word about the king coming on that day, I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken.

[21:53] He will proclaim peace to the nations. He didn't just come for Israel. Just look at Israel today.

[22:03] What is it? after the hundreds of persecutions since Egypt all the way back in the day of Amenadoc the first. She's back in Israel because of the Holocaust.

[22:19] The nations of the world said this people need their homeland back. We've got one they should have won. That fulfills prophecy by the hundreds in the Old Testament.

[22:33] I will take you back to your land forever. Israel is back in the land. How did she get back there?

[22:45] How has she survived through all the persecution? Because it was God's purpose always to take them back to the land.

[23:02] But it's for the sake of all of the rest of us. This is what it says in Zechariah 9. He will proclaim peace to the nations.

[23:12] His rule will extend from sea to sea and from river to the ends of the earth. What you're looking at in our day, if you open your eyes and read the Bible, you're looking at the fulfillment of prophecy when those Israeli people, and they're going back with their hundreds every year to Israel from all over the world.

[23:39] You're looking at prophecy being fulfilled. And that's all in preparation, says the Bible, for the authority prophesied of Jesus Christ being there one day.

[23:53] you have not a chance of hope if you don't depend on the Lord. What does it tell us in Colossians?

[24:06] Christ in us, the hope of glory. When you become a believer, the Holy Spirit overflows in you with hope and assurance.

[24:21] But you wouldn't have the Holy Spirit in you if it were not for Christ's sacrifice and the resurrection. There is no trustworthy hope in the world.

[24:36] It has been attested by millions of people through the centuries that Jesus Christ said, when you believe in me, to them I will give eternal life.

[24:52] Zechariah says he will bring peace not just to Israel, but to the nations.

[25:04] How did it get to you? How did your mum and dad and your grandfather, how did they get the peace that they have been witnessing to all their life? Where did that come from?

[25:16] It came from Jerusalem. Israel. It came from Israel. It came from the one who was brought there, born there, died there, raised there, and was ascended to God's right hand from there, from the little town of Bethany.

[25:38] Friends, the Lord's authority. It is absolutely amazing when you look at Matthew's gospel alone, which is a bridge gospel.

[25:49] Matthew's gospel is number one for a reason. It's not the earliest of the gospels. It's a bridge between the Old Testament and the New. And it uses the Old Testament scripture over 50 times to show the Jews Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, who you're waiting for.

[26:13] That's why Matthew is the first gospel in the New Testament. gospel in the New Testament. Because the word of God has come true and keeps coming true.

[26:29] And the Lord even now is fulfilling prophecies that are still to be fulfilled and will fulfill them ultimately because they are God's word for hope to the nations.

[26:43] on this so-called Palm Sunday. Let me remind you what John Bunyan said. Can you put that up, Stephen?

[26:57] Dear John Bunyan, hope is never ill where faith is well. if the object of your faith is Jesus Christ, who lived and died to fulfill his father's will because God so loved this world that he gave him, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

[27:27] if your faith has as its object the risen saviour, your hope will never be sick.

[27:41] It's authentic. Hope is never ill where faith is well. Oh, the Puritans had wonderful minds, the truths that they wrote.

[27:56] They wrote so much we don't appreciate. The authority of the Lord, that is the authentic hope for any human being.

[28:08] What did he say? After he came back and appeared to the disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Who gave him it?

[28:19] The disciples? No. Israel? No. The prophets? No. The priests? No. The kings? No. God the father has given him the authority in heaven and on earth because of what he's done for heaven and earth.

[28:41] Bringing God and man back together through his atoning sacrifice. Made righteous, reconciled, redeemed, rescued.

[28:52] all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. Go therefore, where does he send them? To the nations across the earth.

[29:05] And lo, I am with you always to the end of the age. it's worth stopping on a Sunday like this, Palm Sunday, and taking in the big picture friends and ask ourselves or let me say to you, whatever you do, whatever you do, please don't put your hope in anyone but the Lord because they will all fail.

[29:51] The established religion of Israel was nothing but a self-righteous mountain and if you went on to read Matthew 23, he pronounced his seven woes against them which were enough to make you want to run away and so they put their heads together let's plan to kill him.

[30:19] They couldn't take the truth. The truth was he is the truth and he comes from God. Please friends, if your hope is ill, ask yourself who is the object of my faith because that's where you'll find the answer.

[30:42] If you find your hope is shaking, you're looking to the wrong people, you're looking to the wrong situation, you're looking to yourself, you're looking to experience, you're looking to this, and you may even start to pray, you may even start to get ritualistic, but remember this, if you're not the Lord's, you're still in your sin, be forgiven of your sins, in Jesus' name, and then, I'm going to read you in closing, what it says, in Romans 15, and then, Romans 15, Paul is explaining to the Gentile believers in Rome, how they and the Jews got to get on inside the gospel.

[31:34] They don't really understand each other. That's what Romans is all about. And then he says, near the end here, for I tell you, Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth so that the promises made to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, might be confirmed.

[32:05] And more over, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. That's the word that's not used often enough.

[32:19] Mercy. If it were not for the loving mercy of God, you would not be a believer. Neither would any Jewish person be a brother or sister to you without the mercy of God.

[32:34] And he quotes their scripture again, his scripture, Old Testament. Therefore, as it is written, I will praise you among the Gentiles, I will sing the praises of your name.

[32:48] Again, it says, you Gentile people, rejoice with his people. rejoice with his people.

[33:03] The Jews and the Gentiles, we are one in Christ when we come to him. And our hope will never be ill because our faith will be well, because the object of the faith is the Messiah, the Christ.

[33:24] God's God's Holy Spirit make sure your hope, friend, is authentic, trustworthy, attested, genuine, and of divine origin, not doubtful.

[33:48] May God's Holy Spirit make us aware people can make great promises to us, high up in high places, but remember high places are slippery places, and pride comes before a fall, whatever you do, don't put your hope in people making promises for your soul.

[34:17] Only Christ can save, sanctify, and englorify. he became a servant, he didn't come to kill, he come to give his life and be killed.

[34:31] Wow. What can you say? May God bless us over this Good Friday, Easter Sunday, may we appreciate the significance of what he's done.

[34:54] Tell him again, I have no hope beside you. I hope that's where you are this morning.

[35:10] You've not just had a visit to this church, but a visit from God. to refresh our faith and then our hope.

[35:22] Father God, we thank you that the Lord Jesus Christ has already fulfilled and is in the process of fulfilling the promises and prophecies given to the patriarchs.

[35:35] hope. And this hope, which speaks about, which the Bible speaks about, is based on the truth of Christ's future rule over all the nations of the earth.

[35:49] Oh, Father, those of us who are yours this morning, we thank you for the overflowing hope that comes into us through the Holy Spirit, given as a gift through Jesus.

[36:05] as we close our service, thank you for helping us. We pray we may rejoice in knowing him until Jesus comes.

[36:19] Amen.