Latest / Journey Elgin / Journey Through Scripture- Mt 21, Mk 11, Lk 19 & John 12
Transcript
- Phillip Thomas: Hey, it's good to see you today. My name is Philip Thomas, pastor of Journey here in Elligan, Texas. Welcome to our Journey Through Scripture. We're actually in the springtime of the New Testament of the Gospels as Jesus is entering into Jerusalem for the final time. We're going to be looking at the triumphal entry today. So we're going to be looking at Matthew ⁓ 21, Mark 11. Luke 19 and John 12. So we're going to look at Jesus coming into Jerusalem and then what happened on Monday. So this time in Jesus' life is obviously takes up a large percentage of the gospels this last week. It's been called the Passion Week. That word passion actually comes from the Latin word for suffering. So this is a week of suffering for Jesus. It's a difficult week. This is one of the reasons that people had trouble understanding that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was the King of Kings, because how could something this horrific happen ⁓ to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords? In their mindset, suffering wasn't part of that. But Jesus was did come and he did suffer for us so that we could have new life and and so this week is called Passion Week. It's the the week of that leads to Jesus' suffering and so we start off we see the triumphal entry. So this is Jesus entering into Jerusalem. There's lots of little things that that go into this that would have pointed people back. ⁓ to, especially in Zachariah chapter nine, verse nine, ⁓ talks about the King coming in riding on a, on a donkey or a colt. ⁓ you know, that, that he, that's how the Messiah would enter in. So Jesus is, ⁓ is very intentional about what is, what is happening here. And you can tell people are catching it. They get the point as well. ⁓ in fact, The Pharisees are very upset about what's going on and they're kind of wondering where are we gonna go from here? The excitement is building for Jesus, but they were able to turn that excitement by the end of the week. But the disciples are excited about this. This is a ⁓ big moment in Jesus' ministry. So you can read through the different accounts. They're all very, ⁓ similar, Matthew chapter 21 verses 1 through 11, talks about the, ⁓ sends two of the disciples to go get a cult and if asked, you know, what are you doing? Just say that the Lord needs it. And that of course happens and all of this is prepared. This is again, this is a huge event that has happened. Matthew chapter five, ⁓ verse four ⁓ of chapter 21 says, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet saying, tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. Again, the King would normally have been seen to come in with all kinds of pomp and circumstance, right? Maybe riding a... ⁓ a white horse or a ⁓ powerful steed coming in all of the imagery that you would ⁓ think of that a king would come in. Jesus was just the opposite. ⁓ He came in on lowly means, ⁓ but yet the people recognized there was something about him. Then of course they ⁓ cry out the Psalms. Hosanna to the son of David, and the son of David is the Messiah. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. So the excitement is building, Jesus is entering into Jerusalem. Mark chapter 11, verses one through 11 is also the triumphal entry. It also mentions how They cried out, Hosanna, that the palm trees were waved. All of those were symbolic of welcoming somebody of power. ⁓ And so we see that consistent in Mark and Luke. We have a little bit ⁓ interesting ⁓ thing that was a little different. It gets to the point where they're all cried out saying, Hosanna. ⁓ Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Then verse 39 of Luke chapter 19. So this is Luke chapter 19, 28 through 44 is the triumphal entry. ⁓ But in verse 39, it says, in some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, teacher, rebuke your disciples. But he answered and he said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. Right? What a powerful statement that is that every knee will bow, right? Every tongue will confess that he is Lord. We have that, that is looking to a future time that eventually everyone will acknowledge who Christ is. Well, this moment is one of those moments that if the disciples were to shut up, even the rocks would cry out in praise, in crying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Again, just such a powerful moment. Now, one thing that Luke does mention is how Jesus kind of draws near the city and he wept over the city. Verse 42 of Luke chapter 19 says, if you had known even you, especially ⁓ in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes for days will come upon you when your enemies will build an abatement around you, surround you. and close you in on every side and level you and your children within you to the ground and they will not leave within you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation. Now Jesus is probably directly talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple that would happen in around 70 AD. So that would be a few years to come when Rome would tear down the temple. ⁓ But he's recognizing that people are not, not everyone is going to understand the significance of what is happening. So then John chapter 12 verses 12 through 19, ⁓ that's Jesus entering in and the gospel of John. He, of course, he also mentions back to ⁓ Zachariah ⁓ and it says verse 16 of John chapter 12. Says, his disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered them. And these things were written about him that they had done these things to him. And then verse 17, therefore the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. For this reason, the people also met him because they heard he had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, you see that you are a accomplishing nothing, look, the world has gone after him. That's a pretty powerful statement. They're recognizing, man, there's something about this guy. He has the momentum right now. And of course they are still planning on how they are going to change that. But this is a day that is a day of celebration that people recognize there's something powerful and special about Jesus. Then we get to Monday and we're gonna kind of hit each of the days as we go through Passion Week. But on Monday, we do have the cleansing of the temple. Jesus' ⁓ end goes into the temple. The temple would have had multiple courts. In fact, at this point, I think there were four courts. There was the court of the Gentiles, and then there was the court of women, and the court of Israel, and then the court of the priest. And each of them had their limitations. So pretty much everybody could go to the court of Gentiles. Then only Jews could go to the court of women and only Jewish men could go to the court of Israel. And then of course only priests to the court of the priest. But here we have, there could be worshiping in all of these courts and there would have been worshiping in all of these courts. But the only place that you could sell things was the court of the Gentiles. What there's, there's probably a lot of things going on here. It wasn't the, just the mere fact that they were selling, that was not a problem. There would have, there would have been a necessity to, to sell animals that were met the standards and to be offered as sacrifice. So that is not the problem. Now, if there was overcharging, yes, taking advantage. Yes, that could have definitely probably is one of the things that's happening here. But also you get the feeling that this it's being done in a way that is distracting from the worship of God. So even in the court of the Gentiles, there would have been worship going on. And what you get the sense that the scene was pretty chaotic and that it was really focused more on selling animals for sacrifice rather than the worship of God. And so Jesus gets very upset in Matthew chapter 21 verses 12 through 17. He went to the temple of God, drove out all of those who bought and sold at the temple, overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold dove. He says, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Then he began healing. ⁓ And this made the priest and the scribes ⁓ extremely angry, said they were indignant and said to him, do you hear what they are saying? And Jesus said, yes, have you never read out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. So good, they are definitely upset with Jesus, ⁓ but Jesus now is going about his business and he knows where it is headed. ⁓ Mark chapter 11. ⁓ verses 12 to 19, as they're, you know, coming into, ⁓ walking along the road, ⁓ kind of coming back into Jerusalem on Monday. ⁓ there's a fig tree that is not, doesn't, is not producing any fruit and Jesus, ⁓ says you'll never produce fruit again. And in Mark, it just says, and the disciples heard this and we'll, hit that again later on. and then you have. Jesus cleansing the temple and Mark. ⁓ It's interesting, one of the things that he said, ⁓ and it is a ⁓ quote from Psalms, but he says he taught them saying, it not written, by how shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? Right? Mark includes that part. It's not just a house of prayer, but it's a house of prayer for all nations. ⁓ And again, the fact that this would have been happening in the Gentile court, the court of the Gentiles. ⁓ just kind of an acknowledgement that, ⁓ that all are welcome to worship God and desire to worship God. ⁓ and the, what the, the money changers and, ⁓ sellers have done is they have been taking away from the worship of God. ⁓ Luke 19, 45 through 48, ⁓ also has, ⁓ the, cleansing of the temple. of Jesus pushing them out. And then in verse 47 of chapter 19 of Luke says, he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests, the scribes and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him and were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive to hear him. So Ken, really interesting. It's hard for us. And of course we know the rest of the story, but it's interesting. that the religious leaders who they had already been planning on how they were going to take Jesus out. They felt, they felt like they were on the losing end at this point. They weren't sure how this was going to happen because the people were actually for Jesus. They were listening to Jesus. They were excited about who he was. But as the week goes on, Jesus doesn't. meet their preconceived ideas of who the Messiah should be and the religious leaders are able to use that to their advantage. All right, so we will continue reading in Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke chapter 20, and go ahead and start in Mark chapter 12 as well. Yeah, that we'll just kind of keep going through. We'll just kind of see how far we can get because there's a ton and there's no good breaks in this. There's lots of teaching, lots of things going on during this Passion Week. So go ahead and read Matthew 21 and 22, Mark 11 and 12, Luke chapter 20. All right, we'll see you all.