This sermon delves into the prophecy and fulfillment of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, highlighting the blindness of the people to recognize Him as the Messiah and the tragic consequences of missing the day of their visitation. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing God's work in our lives, surrendering to Jesus, and seizing the opportunity for salvation and eternal life.

Let's turn now in our Bibles to the Gospel according to Luke chapter 19. For our scripture reading this morning, Luke 19, we'll begin reading with verse 29 and we will read through verse 44. So I'll read the 29th and the odd-numbered verses and we ask you to join together in the reading of the even-numbered verses through verse 44. Let's stand as we read the Word of God. And it came to pass, when Jesus came nigh to Bethesda and to Bethany at the mount called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples saying, Go ye into the village over against you, in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat, loose him and bring him hither. And if any man ask you, why do you loose him? Thus shall ye say unto him, because the Lord has need of him. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him. And they brought him to Jesus, and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon. And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way. And when he was come nigh, even now to the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies will cast a trench about thee, and come past thee round, and keep thee in on every side. And they shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you will help us, even as these people, Lord, were so blind to the truth and the reality that was going around them at that moment. Yet, Lord, they just couldn't see. So, Lord, we pray that you'll help us, that we might be very alert, and that we might, Lord, have a sharpened sense of consciousness of your work in these days, so that, Lord, we would not miss out on that which you are doing today. And so, blessed now we pray, the study of your word today in our hearts, as we look together at the word of God, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, moving through the Bible, we are in Daniel, this week, chapters 9 and 10. Daniel chapter 9 is probably one of the most exciting chapters in the Bible, as far as Bible prophecy is concerned. And so, looking forward to going through in a careful study of chapter 9 tonight, of the book of Daniel. And so, this morning, we'd like to draw your attention to Daniel chapter 9, verses 24 and 25. Here we read, there are 70 weeks of years that are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks of years and 62 weeks of years, and the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troubleless times. It is interesting that God promised, through the prophet Jeremiah, that Israel would be in captivity to Babylon for 70 years. And because Daniel was a student of prophecy, and he was living in Babylon, he was one of the captives in Babylon, he knew that he had been there just about 70 years, and thus he realized that the prophecies of Jeremiah were about to be fulfilled, that somehow there would be a decree that would allow them to go back to Jerusalem. And so he was seeking the Lord as to what the Lord might have for him to do in the far as the repatriation of the nation back to the land. Having a very high position of authority in the Persian Empire, he figured maybe the Lord will use me in this position to help in the repatriation of the people back to the land. And so he was seeking the Lord for a period of time as to what the Lord might have him to do. And as he was praying and waiting upon the Lord, we read that the message that Gabriel the angel brought to Daniel was, there are 77 that are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city, to first of all finish the transgression and to make an end of sins. We know that the making of the end of sins was through the death of Jesus Christ, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, which also was accomplished through his death. To bring in everlasting righteousness, the kingdom of God and the opportunity to have sins forgiven and to live in the righteousness imputed by faith in Jesus Christ. And to seal up the vision and the prophecy, that is to complete it, to put the seal on it, the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah now complete. And to anoint the most holy, that's yet future. So these 77s were to be divided into three different cycles. The first one would be a seven-year cycle or seven years of seven-year cycles, which would be 49 years. The second would be 62 seven-year cycles or 430 years. And then the final one-year seven-year cycle, which would be out at the end. Now the 69 cycles were fulfilled from the time that the commandment would go forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Important to realize that at this particular point, Jerusalem was in shambles. It had been destroyed by the Babylonians. The city had been leveled. There was just really not one stone left standing upon another. As far as the temple was concerned, it had been razed to the ground, as was the city. The walls were destroyed, and the city was just a ruinous heap at this time. But the prophecy was that there would be a command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Now when that command was given, it would be 69 seven-year cycles until the Messiah would come. From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah, the Prince, would be the seven sevens of the 49 years that they were rebuilding the walls and all, and the 62 years or seven-year cycles or 430 years from that point to the coming of the Messiah, the Prince. And so, interesting prophecy in which the Lord was predicting exactly when the Messiah would come. It would be 483 years after the commandment was given to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. The people should have been looking for the Messiah, the Prince, 483 years later. Now there were some of them in Jerusalem that took this prophecy literally, and they were looking for the Messiah just about the time that Jesus was crucified. And when the Messiah did not show up, they put on sackcloth and ashes and went through the streets of Jerusalem, weeping and mourning because they said, the Word of God has failed. The prophecies of the scriptures have failed. The Messiah did not show up. What they didn't know is that Jesus did indeed show up and had been crucified. But even as Daniel here predicts, the Messiah will be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the Prince that shall come, which would be the Romans, will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof will be with a flood or a dispersion. To the end of the war, desolations are determined. And so, the prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. Now, in Nehemiah chapter 2, as he was there in the Persian court, serving the Persian monarch, Artaxerxes, it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, the king, that wine was brought before him. And I took up the wine and gave it to the king. And now I had not before been sad in his presence. Wherefore, the king said unto me, why is your countenance sad, seeing you're not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then Nehemiah said, I was afraid. And I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should not my countenance be sad when the city, the place of my father's sepulchers, lies waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? Then the king said unto me, what do you request of me? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king, if it pleases the king, if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah with the city of my father's, or to the city of my father's sepulchers, that I might rebuild it. So Artaxerxes, as I said, began his reign in 465 BC, and thus the month of Nisan would be actually the first month of the Jewish calendar. And in the year 445 BC, it would have been on April, or March the 14th, rather, on 445 BC, that King Artaxerxes gave the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Now, you have the starting date for the prophecy, March 14th, 445 BC. You have the 69 seven-year cycles to go past, and the Messiah should show up at that time. Now, the prophecies were predicated on the Babylonian calendar, which was a 360-day calendar. So the 360 days, if you would multiply that by the number of years, it would be the 483 years, it would give you 173,880 days. From March 14th, 445 BC, the Messiah, if the Bible prophecies are correct, should appear on the scene. What happened on April 6th, which would be the 173,880 days, April 6, 32 AD? What happened on that particular day? Well, it's interesting that on that particular day, there were several interesting things that did happen in the life of Jesus Christ. So it is interesting that, first of all, this is the first day that Jesus allowed any public recognition of himself as the Messiah. Earlier in his ministry, there were attempts even to sort of force him to acknowledge his leadership, and they were ready to sort of revolt and force Christ into accepting the position of leader, but he disappeared from their midst, and he would not allow any public worship. When he would heal people and they would want to sort of acknowledge it, he would say, just go your way, show yourself to the priest, and you know, don't tell anybody. But yet, people would tell others, and his fame did spread abroad, but he did his best to keep things sort of undercover and as a hush-hush kind of a thing. But on this particular day, Jesus did acknowledge, in fact, and recognize the worship of the people. In fact, he even arranged and set it up and so that people would really notice it on this particular day. We do read that on this particular day, Jesus sent his disciples. He said, go over into the little village, and you'll find a donkey that is tied there. Loose him and bring him to me. If anybody says, why are you loosing the donkey? Just tell them, well, the Lord has need of him. So we read there that he went, the disciples went into the city. They saw on the corner where Jesus had instructed this donkey that was tied. They started to untie it, and as they did, the owner said, what are you doing untying our donkey? And they said, well, the Lord has need of him. So they brought the donkey to Jesus. They laid their coats and all upon it, and he sat down on it, and they began to spread their coats on the path in front of him as he made his riding down the Mount of Olives on into the city of Jerusalem on what is known as the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on this particular day, April 6, 32 AD. Now, there were, there was the prophecy of Zechariah concerning the Messiah. He said in Zechariah 9, 9, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming unto you. He is just, having salvation, but he is lowly. He is riding upon a donkey, upon a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now, you say, well, that's not a very exciting way for a king to come riding into a city on a donkey. You'd think that he might have a powerful, beautiful white steed or something, you know, that he would be riding in on, but riding in on a donkey, or maybe, of course, coming in a Mercedes, but you don't think of him coming riding on a donkey. It's interesting that up to this point in his ministry, Jesus would not allow public acknowledgement of himself as the Messiah. When he began his ministry in Cana of Galilee, he was at a wedding with his mother, and the host of the wedding made a serious mistake. They were running out of wine, and so Mary came to Jesus and said, they're running out of wine, and he said, what's that to me? You know, my hour has not yet come. In other words, Mary was saying, help them, Jesus, but he was saying, look, it isn't yet time. My hour has not yet come, but Mary, knowing her son, and knowing that he had compassion on bad situations, she said to the servants, whatever he tells you to do, do it, and so he told them to fill these big water jugs filled with water, and then as they did, he said, now take it from the water jug and bear it to the governor of the feast, and so as they brought him the water that was taken out of these jugs, he commented, and he said, this is unusual. He said, usually at the beginning of the feast, you bring out the best wine, and when everybody gets a little south, you bring out the poor stuff, because, you know, the taste buds are sort of dulled by now, and they don't really notice, he said, but you saved the best wine until the last, and so we do read that happened at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus there in the Cana of Galilee, but in the 20th, or the 12th chapter of John, beginning with verse 20, we read, there were certain Greeks among them that came to worship at the feast, and they came to Philip, which was a beseda of Galilee, and they desired him, saying, sir, we would like to see Jesus, and Philip came and told Andrew, and again, Andrew and Philip told Jesus, and Jesus answered them, saying, the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit, and he that loves his life shall lose it, he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serves me, let him follow me, and that where I am, there shall also my servant be, and if any man serve me, him will my father honor, and now as my soul troubled, what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour, so father, glorify thy name, and then there came a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again. So at the beginning of his ministry, he said, my hour has not yet come. As he comes to the end of his ministry, he declares, the hour has come in which the Son of Man should be glorified, and so we find that he is now acknowledging and receiving recognition as Messiah. As he was riding on this donkey into Jerusalem, the crowds were hailing him. They were calling for salvation. They were saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, which means save now. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Save now. And the Pharisees, when they heard the crowds calling out, save now, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they said to Jesus, do you hear that? That's blasphemy. Tell them to stop. And Jesus said, I'll tell you something, if they would hold their peace right now, these very stones would cry out. And as he looked at Jerusalem as he was making this entry, when he was come near and beholding the city, he began to weep over it, saying, if you had known, only known, even you at least in this thy day, the things that belong to your peace, but now they're hid from your eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. It says, we will rejoice and be glad in it. And now he's saying, if you only knew the things that belong to your peace in this thy day. This is the 173,380th day from the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem. Just like the prophecy said, he's making his entry, he's presenting himself, making the entry as Zechariah prophesied on a donkey, and he's presenting himself as their king, but their eyes are blinded to him, and they're not receiving or accepting him. And he was weeping over the city, saying, if you'd only known, even you at least in this thy day, the things that you could experience, the things that belong to your peace, but they are hid from your eyes. He then spoke of the tragedies that were going to befall them because of their failure to recognize him as the Messiah. In verse 43 of Luke 19, for he said, the days will come upon thee, your enemies are going to cast a trench about thee, they're going to surround thee, they're going to keep thee in on every side, and they shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because you knew not the day of your visitation. The tragic cost of their blindness, not knowing the day of their visitation, rather than days of rejoicing and, you know, celebrating the destruction that is going to come, and as he could foresee the destruction, he's weeping over the city. If you'd only known the things that you could have, but now they are hid from your eyes. Have you ever thought what it is costing you personally? Because you have not known the things that God has prepared for you, if you would just but surrender your life to him. The days of opportunity that God has given to you to know him, to follow him, to serve him, but because you cannot see or do not see that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah, that he has been sent by God to deliver you from your sin. The blindness that you have toward Jesus, what it is costing you today. You're trapped. There is a trench around you. You've been encircled by the enemy. You've been kept in on every side, and your life is being dismantled, not one stone upon another. Have you ever felt like your life was just sort of falling apart? Have you ever realized what it is costing your family, because you are not serving and following Jesus? The Bible says no man lives unto himself. Your children are being influenced by your life. Never underestimate your influence on those around you, especially those of your own family, all because of ignorance. You never knew the time of your visitation. You attribute your problems to bad luck. You do not see that the hand of God is trying to redirect you into the right path. Those failures that you experience are often messengers of God intended to speak to you and to get you on the right track. In Luke 19.42, as Jesus said, if you'd only known at least in this thy day the things which belong to your peace, but now they are hid from your eyes. If you only knew what God would do for you and wants to do for if you would just open your heart and let him. And so we would encourage you today on this day in which we are studying the special day that God had established for all mankind, the day when the Messiah would come, the Prince, and establish his kingdom in the hearts and lives of those that will open their hearts to him. Your heart, your life today, if you'll just open your heart to Jesus, what he will do, what he wants to do for you, and will do if you will just but allow him. This could be your day today. And so where they had their day that the Lord came and was their opportunity to receive him and to just experience that new life that he had for them, this could be your day today. God is speaking to your heart even now and he's inviting you to just open your heart to him, open your life to him, and you'll be absolutely amazed at what God will do for you and what God wants to do for you today if just given the opportunity to do so. So our prayer for you is that the door will be open in your heart and in your life to receive Jesus Christ and that gift of eternal life that he has promised to each of us who just will but receive him as our Savior and as our Lord. Father, we thank you for what you have done. We thank you, Lord, that you give us that day of opportunity and we realize that this could be the day for many who are here, that you drew them here to this service this morning, that they might hear the word and, Lord, know that your word is true and know, Lord, that what you said shall surely come to pass even as Jesus came just on schedule the very day that was predicted and, Lord, we just know that you are never late. You're always right on time and so there are those here today. This is their day, Lord, to receive and we just pray that you'll help them now, give them that courage and that strength to just step forth and invite you, Lord, to come in and to rule in their hearts and in their lives and we thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand. The pastors are down here at the front and they're here for the purpose of praying with you and praying for you and so we would encourage you this day to take advantage of this opportunity that the Lord is giving to you to receive him as the Messiah, as the Lord of your life and that eternal life that he has promised to those who will just but open their hearts and lives to him. So may the Lord just really minister to you and as we're dismissed, we would encourage you don't head for the exit, head for the front down here. These men will be here waiting to pray with you that you might experience the grace of God, the love of God, and the forgiveness of your sins through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So God bless you, God be with you, and may this be the day that he meets with you in that great experience of forgiveness of sins, salvation, and the hope of eternal life through him. His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. God bless you.