The Fickle Crowd Follows Christ?

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Transcript:

It being the Sunday before Easter, the last opportunity we have to be together on a Sunday morning before Easter, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts with you briefly before we come to this week when a lot of people’s attention will be turned toward spiritual things. I’m not even going to read all the verses to you that I had intended to, but in Mark chapter 11, again if you’ll turn there just very quickly, We’re going to talk in just the next couple of minutes. We’ll talk about the fickle crowd.

In Mark chapter 11, we all know about Palm Sunday. Most of us do. The triumphal entry, Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, and the people took out the palm fronds, and they laid them before him, and they fanned him, and they shouted things.

Well, it says in verse 8 here that, And many spread their garments in the way, and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them down in the way. And they that went before and they that followed cried, saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest. And so the people, all the people of Jerusalem, gathered there to watch Jesus coming in. And this was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, as I’ve told you before. They expected him to come in as their king, and he did, but he was a different kind of king than what they expected.

And so all the people came, and in this tremendous show of respect, They didn’t even want the donkey that he rode on to get dirty. And so they threw their garments down on the ground for the donkey to walk on. And they cried out, Hosanna, and they praised him and blessed him and all these things.

And folks, I don’t know about you, but I can’t think about the triumphal entry without thinking about what happened later on that week. That in less than a week, the entire attitude, the entire view of Christ from this same crowd shifted so dramatically. If we turn to Mark chapter 15, Mark chapter 15, there was later on in the week, Jesus had been arrested.

Jesus had been brought to trial. In one of his trials, he’s brought before the people. Excuse me. And Jesus is brought before Pilate, and he answers nothing in his defense.

And Pilate, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the province, asked the people, Should I release Jesus? It had become his custom to release somebody at this time as a gesture of goodwill to the Jewish people. Should I release Jesus or should I release Barabbas who killed somebody in the middle of a rebellion?

It says in verse 6 of chapter 15, Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner whomsoever they desired. And there was one named Barabbas which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him and who committed murder in the insurrection. And the multitude, crying aloud, began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them.

That means they wanted him to release somebody. But Pilate answered unto them, Will ye that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Meaning Jesus.

For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. Even Pilate knew there was nothing that Jesus had done wrong. The chief priests were jealous of Jesus.

They were envious. But the chief priests, verse 11, moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. The chief priests got in among the people and convinced them, we want Barabbas released.

And Pilate answered and said unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call king of the Jews? And they cried out. Folks, get this, the people who just five or six days before, or three or four, a few days before, had cried out, Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, cried out again, Crucify him. The same people. And Pilate said unto them, verse 14, Why?

What evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him. And so Pilate tried to reason with them.

Even Pilate is probably not a good man, but he here even realizes Jesus has done nothing wrong and tries to reason with the people, but they won’t even hear what he has to say. And they cried out even louder, Crucify him. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them and delivered Jesus when he had scourged him to be crucified.

And folks, as we prepare to close today, I think about this crowd. And you’ve got notes in your bulletin. I think about this fickle crowd that earlier in the week cried out that he’s the king.

We’re ready to crown him king. And then later on in the week, the same crowd cried out of the same man, crucify him. We were ready to make him our king, but now we want him put to death in the most humiliating way possible.

Folks, we as a human race are so fickle when it comes to our relationship with God. These people were willing to follow Christ for the benefits. They were willing to follow Christ when they thought they were going to gain something.

You see, these people were ready to crown Christ as their king because they thought the promised Messiah was going to be a political liberator, somebody who was going to set up an earthly kingdom and who was going to kick the Romans out of their land and who was going to rule over them. And that’s what they wanted. And they saw some benefit to this.

they thought, if this is the guy, we want to get behind him because it’s only going to be good for us. And they were willing to follow him for the benefits. And sometimes today, we are willing to follow him for the benefits.

People will try to follow him or they’ll pay lip service to following him. And sometimes we do the same because there’s some benefit to it. We like being part of the church.

We like the fellowship. We like being able to say, I’m a Christian. And we’ll follow him for the benefits.

Folks, some of them followed him for the excitement. You can’t deny there was some excitement associated with Christ’s ministry. He’d done miracles.

Folks, he’d raised people from the dead. He’d fed 5,000 people with just a few pieces of bread and fish. He’d healed blind people.

He’d done amazing things. And some people were following him just for the excitement of it. And we know that there’s what they call the bandwagon effect in politics.

When somebody starts to get a little bit of a following, then everybody wants to follow that person. And they follow for the excitement, whether they know what the guy’s about or not. And this crowd was willing to follow Christ for the excitement.

And sometimes we’re willing to follow Christ when it’s exciting, when it seems fun. People today are willing to say, I’m a Christian. They’re willing to pay lip service to it when there seems to be some good in it for them.

That what following Christ means to them, it means prestige. It means things are going to go better in my life. It means any number of things other than what he actually really means.

See, in the course of this week, he had made it clear to them that he was king of the Jews. He’d made it clear to his followers that he was not there to set up an earthly kingdom. They argued about who would get to sit on either side of him when he was enthroned and made it clear to them, you don’t understand the kingdom I’m here to set up.

And ladies and gentlemen, it was when he missed their expectations. The crowd was willing to follow Christ until he missed their expectations. And today, we still are willing to follow Christ until he misses our expectations.

We’re willing to pay lip service to Christ. The world is willing to pay lip service to Christ until we don’t get exactly what we want out of him, until the wonderful new life we’re promised doesn’t materialize, until somebody gets sick, until somebody gets their feelings hurt, until any number of things happen, and then we’re willing to just turn our back on Christ and everything that we said we followed. Now, when I say we, I mean we as a human race. I’m not accusing anybody in this room.

But I think if we’re honest, even in this room, we all have our moments where we don’t follow Christ the way we ought to because things just aren’t the way we expected them to be. Folks, as believers, we not only trust Christ as our Savior, but out of that, we have to recognize Him as Lord. Now, I don’t believe that you get all your sins cleared up, and then you come to Christ, and then you get saved.

But ladies and gentlemen, out of our salvation, there should come a change in our hearts and our lives because of the work of the Holy Spirit within us. And if we’re following Christ for the benefits and for the excitement and for whatever else and not because we’ve been called by the Holy Spirit and responded to the conviction that, hey, we were sinners in need of a Savior and Christ died to fulfill that role, died to pay the penalty for our sins, folks, we can’t really be His followers. A lot of people this week, a lot of people around the world are going to be talking about Jesus Christ and, oh, I’m a Christian and, oh, I go to church.

because they go to church Easter, Christmas. And folks, we’re going to be glad if people come next week. And we’re going to love them, and we’re going to share the gospel with them.

I’m not talking bad about them. But folks, we want to make sure that we don’t simply follow Christ until things don’t work out. That we’re following Christ out of conviction.

We’re following Christ out of love. And we’re following Christ because we genuinely are His people. Folks, it doesn’t make you a Christian to say, well, I love Jesus because He offers me these benefits, He offers me this.

Folks, the way to become a Christian is to recognize our sin before a holy God, to recognize that a penalty is owed for our sins and that only Jesus Christ can pay it.