Riding Into Jerusalem
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tions were unlawful and would not be permitted by the authorities. But
the reply of Jesus silenced their haughty commands: “I tell you that, if
these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”
God himself had, in his special providence, arranged the order
of the events then transpiring, and if men had failed to carry out the
divine plan, He would have given a voice to the inanimate stones and
they would have hailed his Son with acclamations of praise. This
scene had been revealed in prophetic vision to the holy seers of old,
and man was powerless to turn aside the purposes of Jehovah. As the
silenced Pharisees drew back, the words of Zechariah were taken up
by hundreds of voices: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O
daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy King cometh unto thee; he is just,
and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt,
the foal of an ass.”
The Pharisees were forced to desist from their efforts to calm
the enthusiasm of the people. All their expostulations only served to
increase their ardor. The world had never before seen such a triumphal
procession. It was not like that of the earth’s famous conquerors. No
train of mourning captives, as trophies of kingly valor, made a feature
of that imposing pageant. But about the Saviour were the glorious
trophies of his labors of love for sinful man. There were the captives
whom he had rescued from Satan’s cruel power, praising God for their
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deliverance. The blind to whom he had restored sight pressed on,
leading the way. The dumb, whose tongues he had loosed, shouted the
loudest hosannas. The cripples whom he had healed bounded freely
on, the most active in breaking the palm-branches and in waving them
before the Saviour. Widows and orphans were among the multitude
exalting the name of Jesus for his works of mercy to them. The lepers
who had been cleansed by a word from him, and rescued from a living
death, spread their untainted garments in his path and hailed him as
the King of Glory. Those who had been awakened by his magic voice
from the sleep of death were in that throng. Lazarus, whose body
had seen corruption in the grave, now restored to the full strength of
glorious manhood, guided the humble beast upon which his Liberator
rode.
When the procession arrived at the summit of the hill and was
about to descend into the city, Jesus halted, and all the multitude with
him. Jerusalem in all its glory lay before them, bathed in the light of