Sunday, April 5, 2009

WORSHIP GOD! -- Devotional for Palm Sunday, April 5, from "Good Seeds"

The whole multitude began joyfully praising God with a loud voice, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” Hearing this, the Pharisees said, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the very stone will cry out!” (Luke 19:37-40)

Have you ever been in church where someone rudely interrupts the pastor right in the middle of his sermon, totally upsetting the flow of the service? Oh I suppose it’s a possibility, though I’ve never witnessed it. But it happened to Jesus all the time. He would be teaching away when suddenly a cry was heard, “Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy on me.” Someone was surely in greater need of the healing touch of His hand than of the soothing words of His mouth. And this didn’t just occur during the sermon. Look what happened on that first Palm Sunday: right in the middle of a precious time of seamless praise, a spokesman for the religious establishment piped up with a complaint: It would be one thing if folks were ticker taping a popular politician, or welcoming home a local hero, but it was obvious to these astute teachers of the law that these simpletons were doing far more than that. The words they were singing seemed to be identifying Jesus not just as an honorable man, but a conquering god. Well, anyone who knew the person and work of God as well as the Pharisees would know that this was downright heresy, and must be quickly nipped in the bud. To give the kind of praise to a man that belonged only to God was a violation of the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). When Paul was bitten by a deadly viper and he didn’t die, the superstitious islanders thought he was a god (Acts 28:2-6). When John saw the angel of the Lord in great glory, he fell down to worship him. What that angel then said to John is what must always be said whenever anyone less than God is worshiped as God: “Get up! For I am no more than your fellow servant. Do not worship me – WORSHIP GOD!” (Revelation 22:8-9). But this is not even close to what Jesus said in response to the worship He was receiving: “If the mouths of these were stopped up, the once silent rocks would somehow find a tongue to extol their Creator!” As C.S. Lewis observed, we can dismiss Jesus as an ego-centric maniac, or worship Him as the God of the Universe, but let’s not have any nonsense about Him being merely a great teacher. His words to the Pharisees remove that option. You cannot ignore Him. You can deny Him, or worship Him. You must choose – and your eternal destiny resides in that choice!

No comments:

Post a Comment