Mensa Otabil - Behold the King (10/31/2025)
Welcome to a brand new week. This is a significant week that leads to Palm Sunday, the triumphant entry of the Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. My teaching this week will be tracking — first, we begin with a prophecy leading to the triumphant entry, and then we’ll be tracking the different steps that Jesus took leading to His entry into Jerusalem.
So we start with a prophecy in Zechariah chapter 9:9: «Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.»
Zechariah is known as the prophet of hope. God raised him at a time when there was so much despair in Israel to speak life and to bring words of encouragement to His people. There were prophecies that he gave concerning the times they were living in, and then there were prophecies he spoke about the future of God’s dealings with mankind. This prophecy of his was a Messianic prophecy, which means it was pointing to the coming Messiah.
He says that in this prophecy, there will be a Savior King who would enter into Jerusalem. If you look at the prophecy, the inhabitants of Jerusalem are called the daughters of Jerusalem. We don’t want to look at that in an exclusive way to say that he’s only talking to women, but the phrase «Daughter of Jerusalem» in the scriptures, and it could be «daughter of another place,» means inhabitants of the place. So we don’t just look at it as talking to the women of Jerusalem, but to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And it says that your King comes to you, and that’s a very strong statement, because normally it’s the subjects who go to the King; the King doesn’t go to his subjects. But then, in the passage, the King is coming to us, and that shows us the effort that God made for our salvation. It wasn’t us looking for Him; it was Him looking for us. The King comes to seek and to save that which was lost.
So the King comes to us. In Christianity, God reaches out to man for salvation; in several other religions, man is trying to reach to God for salvation. But in Christianity, God is the one who comes to us and offers us salvation. So your King is coming to you. Then it says a few things about the King: that He is a just King, and He is also a humble King.
This King who is coming is not coming as an overlord to rule over people or to dominate them, but He is a King who is a servant King. He is coming to serve, and that was the mission of Jesus Christ. He was a King who was lowly, a King who was humble, and a King who came to serve. The sign of His lowliness, the sign of His humility, was how He approached. In the days that this passage was written, Kings entered cities when they had conquered or had come from a conquest.
But in this situation, the King had not conquered yet, but He’s entering, and He’s not entering on a horse but on a donkey, which was the animal of choice for riding for poor people. Now, the reason why Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph when He knew He was going to die was that He was very much aware that the entry into Jerusalem was going to work out the purposes of God.
As far as Jesus was concerned, entering Jerusalem was a triumph. In entering Jerusalem, He had brought victory to God’s people. So today we can also look at that lowly King who came to us, reached out to us, and offered us salvation. Your King comes to you riding on a donkey. What a King! What a Lord!
Let us pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, Your love for me knows no boundaries. Thank You for reaching out to me when I was far away from You. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.