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[0:00] So, yes, we are, as Joe said, going into Matthew 21, approaching the end of Jesus' life, but not the end of Matthew's Gospel.

[0:11] We've got eight chapters left to go. We won't cover all eight of them this morning, you'll be pleased to know. But turn with me to Matthew 21. And this is the part of Matthew's Gospel that deals with what is usually called the triumphal entry, and it's what Anglican churches would celebrate as Palm Sunday.

[0:35] I think Catholic churches do it as well, but I'm very unfamiliar with Catholic. They do. Which mostly is celebrated without any real understanding of the events of the day.

[0:46] You very rarely hear the truth driven home about what happened on that day and how significant it was. So before we actually start going into the scripture, we need to remind ourselves that up to now, Jesus has made this journey from Jericho.

[1:05] He's on his way up to Jerusalem, which is an uphill walk of about 18 miles, at the end of which he finished up in this area near Bethany, Bethage.

[1:20] That's not how it's pronounced. I'll deal with that in a moment, but it's the way it's written in English. So he's made this 18 mile journey with his disciples in tow.

[1:31] The disciples probably weren't just the 12, but they were probably, the word disciple means follower. So they're probably a multitude of followers who were tagging along.

[1:41] And so the majority of these people tagging along were believers. And we also know from the other gospels, and by the way, this event is recorded in all four gospels.

[1:56] So something that God bothers to put in all four gospels. I mean, we should pay attention to anything that's in the Bible. But if God chooses to repeat it four times, he's trying to make a point.

[2:07] So there are things about this that we mustn't miss. So before this, they have seen him heal lots of sick people.

[2:19] They, only days before this, they've seen him raise Lazarus from the dead. On his journey there, he's also fed thousands of people.

[2:34] With no real, I mean, a couple, a few fish and a few loaves, and he's fed thousands. He's shown his ability to control the weather.

[2:46] And so we approach this time, which is the date of the 10th of Nisan. 10th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar, which is sometime in April.

[2:58] But this is a time that is prophetically significant. And so switched on Jews would have expected some big event at this point. And so he's coming into Jerusalem right on time.

[3:12] Although many of those people coming out to meet him didn't realise that there was a time and that this was fulfilling a biblical prophecy. So he gets to this point and it's, keep in mind the background in the heads of the Jews.

[3:31] They have seen him do miracles. They've seen him raise the dead. They've been looking for Messiah who would deliver them from the oppression of the oppressor.

[3:42] In this case, the Roman Empire. So when they welcome him as their king, in their minds, they must be thinking, we are invincible with this leader.

[3:56] They can't starve us out because he can produce food out of nowhere. They can't kill us because he can just call us out of the grave like he did with Lazarus.

[4:07] A prophecy that was made in John chapter 5, which we won't take the trouble to study now, but one of the things that was prophesied there is the Lord himself said, a day is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Lord from inside the tombs and they will come walking out.

[4:25] And this happens at the raising of Lazarus. And of course, happens again later on when after the resurrection, people who are well known, who are dead and buried, are seen walking around the city.

[4:38] Verse 25, if you're looking for that prophecy. So they're welcoming a king that they think will deliver them from the physical oppression of the Roman Empire.

[4:52] And what they have failed to take note of is the fact that this coming of the Lord is not for that. In fact, they've failed to take note of the fact that there would be two comings of their Messiah.

[5:05] And we'll get to understand why they would be confused about that in a moment as we go through. But Jesus hasn't come to deliver them from the Roman Empire. He's come to deliver them from their sins.

[5:17] He's come with great compassion to lay down his life and pay the price that they owe for their sins and therefore releasing them from the burden of that sin and the condemnation of that sin and release them to be able to enter heaven despite their imperfections.

[5:35] A remarkable background to this. Now, let's turn to it and begin to read it. And we're only going to deal with the triumphal entry, which I think is 11 verses.

[5:49] Yeah, it is. It's 11 verses. When they had approached Jerusalem, they had come to... Now, this word that appears to us as Bethphage, I think it's pronounced Bet-Farga.

[6:04] I think. Correct me if I'm wrong. Linda will check. It's interesting that so many different preachers pronounce it in a different way. I'm just going to stick with Bethphage because that's what it looks like in English.

[6:17] But I think the Jewish pronunciation is Bet-Farga. So, they had come to this village, Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives.

[6:28] Then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.

[6:38] If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them. And immediately he will send them. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

[7:01] The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them. They brought a donkey and a colt and laid their coats on them, and he sat on the coats.

[7:12] Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of him and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David!

[7:25] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! When he had entered Jerusalem, All the city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.

[7:41] So that's the piece that we're going to look at this morning. And this little event, it wasn't such a little event, I suppose, but it's literally now, you know, in modern day terms, a crowd of people coming into Jerusalem, and another crowd coming out of Jerusalem to meet them.

[8:03] But it fulfills so many bits of Old Testament prophecy, and you realize that the Old Testament prophecies it fulfills were something like half a century earlier.

[8:16] And so the first point I'd like to make, which is one I make regularly, is God sits outside of time, and he can pinpoint any point in time, and he can tell you what's going to happen before it happens.

[8:30] And this was prophesied about half a century earlier, that Jesus would ride into the city on a donkey's colt. So it's fulfilling a prophecy that was made half a century before.

[8:44] Only God can do this kind of thing. Now, the village of Bethpage, is adjacent to the other village of Bethany.

[8:57] And Bethany is the village where Lazarus lived, who Jesus raised from the dead a few days earlier than this, from what I can gather. He had a feast in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper.

[9:11] Now, hang on a minute. He had a friend called Lazarus, who was the ex-dead man, and he had a feast at the home of Simon the ex-leper.

[9:27] And this was well known. And people will often throw at Christians, oh, surely you don't believe this stuff, do you? This was well known. Lazarus was well known.

[9:38] Simon the leper was well known, because everybody was walking around him and avoiding him, until he was cleansed of his leprosy. So the crowd that was going with Jesus were backed by these witnesses of the effectiveness of the messianic ministry of Jesus.

[9:55] He had cleansed lepers, which was one of the messianic miracles that the Pharisees taught the Jews. If you see somebody healing lepers, this is Messiah.

[10:06] Only Messiah can do this. They had their own separate law that had been written by Moses, what to do if the leper is cleansed. And it had laid there gathering dust for centuries, until one day Jesus shows up and starts healing lepers.

[10:22] And when they criticise him for doing it on the Sabbath, he sets them an even bigger conundrum by healing 10 lepers. So this was a fulfilment of messianic miracles.

[10:35] Only Messiah would do these things. And so this is the background upon which they believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as he makes his way into Jerusalem from this area, this crowd that is following have not only got Jesus's preaching, but they've got the personal witness of his miraculous ministries that fulfilled the scriptures.

[10:56] And it's believed that it was to Bethany. So they arrive at Bethpage and then it's believed to Bethany, the next door of it, that he sent the disciples and said, go and get me the donkey and the colt.

[11:11] Which then makes you think, how did he know there was a donkey and a colt there? Well, because he's God, for goodness sake. He knows the end from the beginning. And he set it up.

[11:24] So how did he set it up? I don't know. He just did. And in fact, one could argue that he set it up before the foundation of the world.

[11:35] Because the whole of Jesus's ministry was a planned thing. It was operating to a divine timetable. And when you start to realise these things and let them sink into your spirit, you think, how could I ever doubt this God?

[11:51] Only he could do this. And if people told lies about it, the people of Bethany would have said, no, that didn't happen. Anyway, I digress. Back when he wrote the prophecy 500 years earlier, he certainly knew that he'd need a donkey and a colt to fulfil the prophecy he'd written.

[12:09] How did he know the owner would be amenable? I don't know. But he was famous in Bethany for raising Lazarus and for healing Simon the leper.

[12:22] So who's going to deny such a man a request? What we're entering into is precious territory because it's evidence that God wrote the word and then fulfilled it to the letter.

[12:36] And we're going to see how much to the letter it was fulfilled. And I apologise in advance if I lose anybody along the way because there's one bit of it that gets a little bit technical. And normally after I've shared it, I get people say, oh, I'm very confused by that.

[12:49] I'll try not to be confusing. But if I am, by all means, come and see me and we'll talk it through. This place called Bethpage means the house of unripe figs.

[13:03] Why is that significant? Well, this village was outside the city wall of Jerusalem. Now, all of the traffic coming into Jerusalem had to be allowed in through the seat of the Sanhedrin, the religious government.

[13:23] The religious government had two seats. One was in the temple in Jerusalem and the second seat was in this village of Bethpage. And the village had been built entirely as a village of priests.

[13:35] And it was a place where judicial decisions were passed. And so if somebody was scheduled for execution, it would have to be finally ratified at Bethpage before it happened.

[13:49] So it's somewhat compelling to note that Jesus started his journey into Jerusalem from the place that would eventually finalize his conviction and send him to the cross.

[14:04] And this place was deliberately outside the camp because outside the camp is where executions took place and all the blood sacrifices took place, including the sacrifices of red heifer.

[14:17] All of that was taken place outside the camp and was adjudicated from Bethpage, which was outside the camp. Now, I haven't got time to go into the Old Testament prophecies about these things having to happen outside the camp.

[14:31] So you'll have to take my word for it for now. But this group of the Sanhedrin met in this place. And of course, they would have had to allow Jesus's entry into Jerusalem.

[14:44] And there was no reason why they shouldn't because he was renowned as a rabbi and he was considered to be a holy man despite the fact that they hated his guts. So he went into the city.

[14:56] Now, the house of unripe figs is an interesting one. And the reason it got called that from rabbinical writings is because they believed that at the fall of man, the fruit that was eaten was a fig.

[15:11] No way of knowing whether that's true or not. Neither do they. But they have assumed it was a fig. And so in their minds, they name this place of unripe figs because they would never again put themselves in temptation.

[15:29] And of course, if the fig's not ripe, you're not tempted to eat it. So they would never again put themselves in temptation of eating the fruit in a wrong way. But I also find it interesting in that we'll come to it in later chapters.

[15:45] But there was that occasion when Jesus cursed the fig tree for not bearing fruit. And the fig tree was always a symbolism for Israel. So was Israel this house of unripe figs?

[16:01] They should have been ready for picking. Messiah had been with them for three and a half years. They should have been ripe and ready. And they were not. They rejected him. So I suspect there's a metaphor in there for everybody to take note of.

[16:17] He started at the house of unripe figs. Israel was a house of unripe figs. Now, I have to say, it's fair to say, I made that up.

[16:29] That's not openly revealed in the scriptures. It's what I gleaned from it when I read the scriptures. So you need to do your own homework. To decide whether I'm telling the truth or not.

[16:42] The reason they believed it was a fig, by the way, was because Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves to cover their nakedness. And they made the connection between that and the fruit they'd eaten.

[16:52] And they might have been completely wrong. But that's why they believed it. Bethany, it's believed, was the place where the mode of transport came from that would fill the prophecy in Zechariah 9.9.

[17:07] Let's turn to Zechariah 9 and chapter 9. So the prophetic verse in question says this.

[17:19] So if you just read that, and then Jesus wanders into town on a donkey, you think, yes, that prophecy's being fulfilled.

[17:45] And if you read the next verse, what you may not realise is between verse 9 and verse 10 is a very large gap of time. Because it says this, So this prophecy seems to speak of someone who'll come in on a donkey, but will be a military warrior that is going to quell the rebellion of anybody else and is going to take prime position over all the oppressors.

[18:28] That's what they were expecting, if you look at the screen. Someone who was going to come in and rule and reign. Although they had to reconcile the idea that he was going to come in on a donkey, not a white horse.

[18:41] But they were looking for a military conquistador. What they got was this. Or perhaps this.

[18:54] The point is made that, and if you read all four accounts of this and conflate what's said in those accounts, he was riding on a donkey upon which no man had previously sat.

[19:07] That, if you do that, you take your life in your hands because that thing is going to buck all over the place. It's going to throw you off. That donkey knew its creator because that donkey just complied and followed its mother all the way as Jesus entered the city.

[19:27] And once again, he shows he is the Lord. He's the Lord of creation. He was the Lord over that donkey. Nobody would normally try to ride a donkey that hadn't been broken and trained.

[19:42] So he comes into the city on a donkey. In fact, not even on a donkey, but on a donkey's colt. And they're saying, hail, hosanna, hosanna, save us.

[19:57] The word hosanna means Lord, save. And I've often heard it preached that people were crying out to have their sins forgiven. I would say to you, that's probably rubbish.

[20:09] They were actually praying and crying out to be saved from Rome. They had no cognizance of the fact that their sins needed to be forgiven.

[20:21] They certainly had no cognizance of the fact that having your sins forgiven is far more important than being delivered from Rome. In the eyes of sinful man, sin is not important.

[20:35] In fact, sin is fun. Sin is something we chase after. The sinful man is a hedonist by nature, wants to chase after sinful stuff. So they thought, here's our opportunity.

[20:49] We are going to be invincible if this man becomes our king. You may remember back to the story of the feeding of the 5,000. They tried to make him king. And he found a way to get away from that because he didn't want to be forced to be king because he didn't want to act like the military king.

[21:08] So what did he want? Well, he wanted to come and die. He wanted to come and die for the sins of the people because he loved the people. And his demonstration of kingliness was one of humility.

[21:23] He didn't come waving a big banner and wanting to take over with a big entourage surrounded by horses and armoured vehicles and so on.

[21:36] He came in on the back of a donkey. And you can see why reading Zechariah 9, they'd read a bit about the donkey and associate it with the next verse and think, well, he might be on a donkey, but he's amazing and he's bound to deliver us from Rome.

[21:53] And what did he do when he arrived? Absolutely nothing. If you read Mark's account, he had a look around the temple and then left and went back to Bethany to be with his friends.

[22:07] So they're all stirred up. We're going to be free. We're going to get rid of Rome. We're going to... He hasn't done anything. He's gone home. And his example follows on from the other demands he's made on the characters of his disciples as we've watched them come through all the teachings to this point where he has challenged their attitude of heart.

[22:31] They were saying to themselves, well, who's going to be first in the kingdom? If you want to be first, put yourself last. If you want to be first, be the most humble.

[22:41] If you want to be first, serve. He's challenged attitude of heart right the way through to this point. And now he's demonstrating what he's been preaching because his attitude of heart was humility.

[22:57] Could he have routed Rome there and then on the spot? Of course he could. Nothing's too hard for the Lord. He was operating according to a plan that demonstrated demonstrated to the people present how they should live.

[23:13] And it's not by oppression that he was taking his kingship. It's out of humility and kindness and compassion that he took his kingship. Just briefly, because there is going to be a second coming.

[23:26] Turn to Revelation chapter 19. And we're just going to read verses 11. Now this is Jesus at the second coming.

[23:39] Different kind of coming altogether. Verse 11. And I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and wages war.

[23:54] His eyes are a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood.

[24:07] His name is called the word of God and the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

[24:34] that's the Jesus that they wanted in the presence of Rome that's the Jesus we'll all get at the second coming of Jesus when he fulfills all the things written about him.

[24:47] But his first coming was not for this purpose. His first coming was in meekness and humility. When we read the prophecy in Zechariah it actually says that he is coming lowly.

[25:03] Right? Behold your king who comes on a donkey's colt lowly or in humility. Not the sort of king you want when you're looking for a military victory but absolutely the sort of king you want when you want to be forgiven and granted eternal life.

[25:23] He's gone back to Bethany at this point and we need to set the time of this so he has arrived. Now if you think of the Passover sacrifice which we think of as Good Friday Good Friday is the Passover sacrifice Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection.

[25:44] But the Passover did not start with Good Friday the Passover started Good Friday in the Jewish calendar would have been on the 14th of Nisan. The Passover season started started on the 10th of Nisan which is the date that this happened.

[26:04] Now a typical family would take a lamb and they'd take the lamb out of the herd a spotless perfect lamb that had been inspected and found to be perfect and they'd take it into the house and it would become a pet for four days.

[26:19] The kids would be fluffing its ears and it would be meh around the place and they'd be feeding it and cuddling it and it would become familiar to them. Nevertheless on the 14th day the knives would come out and it would be slaughtered as a sacrifice.

[26:38] What a graphic image that is. But what we have here is Jesus turning up on the 10th of Nisan riding into the city on a donkey's colt and being welcomed loads of adulation Hosanna in the highest blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord as that says Baruch Abba Hashem Adonai they'd be crying this out at the tops of their voices rejoicing because their king has come and four days later he would be sacrificed and they would kill him and put him on the cross.

[27:15] So what you have is one being the parallel of the other the prophetic sacrifice of Passover being fulfilled by the actual events that happened to Jesus a remarkable thing when you think that the instructions for the Passover sacrifice were written in the book of Exodus chapter 12 about 1600 years prior amazing the word of God is true and Isaiah 46 tells us he is God and he knows the end from the beginning I'm now going to get a little bit technical and I hope I don't lose people because if you see this this is glorious turn to Daniel chapter 9 there are some in the room would be very familiar with this and others who are still confused by it to this day and I'm going to every time I do this I try to undo the confusion and up to now with at least some people I have singularly failed to do so in

[28:23] Daniel chapter 9 Daniel receives a vision and the reason he's praying and seeking God for a vision is because in Jeremiah chapter 25 he is told 70 years of captivity will be decreed upon your people Daniel is praying about 68 and a half years later and he's saying Lord what's going to happen when's it going to end 68 and a half years in you said 70 years so what's going to happen next that's my paraphrase of the verses before the ones we're going to read and his answer to this if you start from verse 20 in Daniel chapter 9 his answer to this he says now while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sins and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my supplication before the

[29:23] Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God while I was still speaking in prayer then the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision previously came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering he gave me instruction and talked with me and said oh Daniel I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding at the beginning of your supplications the command was issued and I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision so Daniel's been praying he's had this vision he's been praying about it Lord what does it mean and finally in exhaustion Gabriel has come to him an angelic being has come to him and has said God has told me to tell you what it all means and then he says 70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city okay 70 weeks well he's 68 and a half years 68 and a half weeks into this persecution so he's kind of 18 months from the end of it and so sorry it's a 70 year persecution and he's about 68 and a half years into it is what I'm trying to say and so he's told effectively in 70 weeks it's going to be all over and sure enough you can read in the book of

[30:51] Daniel the persecution of Israel stopped about 70 weeks later but then it goes on to say these other things which could be very confusing if you don't understand a little bit about the Hebrew way of thinking so he says 70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression to make an end of sin to make atonement for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place so 78 weeks later the captivity had finished but there wasn't an end to sin and there wasn't an establishment of holiness and there wasn't all these other things they didn't happen at that point but in Hebrew unlike in English we think a week a week is seven days isn't it but in Hebrew the word is shibua and shibua simply means seven seven of anything there will be seventy sevens so in Hebrew you can have a week of years rather than a week of days a week of years is seven years and so what this prophecy says is seventy times seven years have been decreed for your people and at that point there will be a whole completion of everything unrighteousness will be ended what it says to finish transgression make an end of sin make atonement for iniquity bring in everlasting righteousness seal up the vision and prophecy so the whole thing is going to be complete in seventy times seven years four hundred and ninety years in four hundred and ninety years the whole job is going to be complete that includes the second coming of

[32:44] Jesus Christ but then the angel says this so you are now to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince will be seven sevens of years plus sixty two sevens of years it will be built again with plaza and moat even in times of distress so if you add those two together you've got seven sevens and sixty two sevens which makes sixty nine sevens which is four hundred and eighty three years seven years short of the four hundred and ninety are you thoroughly confused yet so this prophecy says that from that date whenever that date was when this decree is made that Jerusalem can be rebuilt four hundred and eighty three years later Messiah the Prince will present himself to Israel and there's still seven more years and we're still waiting for that last seven years by the way that's another

[33:50] Bible study but four hundred and eighty three years from the decree scholars broadly agree that that decree was given in the year four four five BC Artaxerxes started his reigning for six five BC and the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was given on the first day of Nisan in the 20th year of Artaxerxes so in our calendar that was March the 14th 445 BC and you can read about the decree in Nehemiah 2 1 Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 1 I haven't got time to do it this morning it's an hour study all of its own going back away there was a guy called Sir Robert Anderson who was knighted for his research into this topic he received a knighthood and he wrote this book called The Coming Prince and he concluded that a prophetic year or a Jewish was 360 days long and you get that from

[34:55] Revelation 11 3 and 12 verse 6 and 13 verse 5 where 1260 days was half a year 1260 days equates to three and a half years in those scriptures I've misread my notes 1260 days in those passages of scripture is said to be three and a half years which means the Jewish year must have been a 360 day year so if you take your 360 day year and times that by 483 you get 173 880 days so 173 880 days from that decree should give you the point at which Jesus presents himself to Israel so this if it's true is day perfect so Jesus began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius you'll find that in

[35:56] Luke 3 verse 1 this will be in the notes when you get them Tiberius started his reign in 14 AD that's a historical fact so Jesus ministry started in 29 AD Jesus celebrated four Passovers in his ministry in 29 30 and 31 AD and then his final Passover in 32 AD and from the lunar charts Anderson calculated the exact date of these ancient Passovers and it's possible to calculate the exact day of Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem as April the 6th 32 AD and that is the 10th of Nisan so you come at it prophetically from the past and the date predicted 173 880 days after the decree is

[36:57] April the 6th or the 10th of Nisan come at it the other way look at Jesus ministry when did this event that we're reading about happen the 10th of Nisan now that's a lot to hold in your mind without making notes and seeing notes the notes are here I will put them online and I've kind of put what I hope is a simple summary but if you go from 445 BC to 32 AD that is 476 years of our Julian calendar not 477 because there's no zero when you go from BC to AD you have to jump a year so 476 years times 365 days the Julian calendar 173 740 days if you then adjust for the difference between March the 14th and April the 6th that adds 24 days and if you then adjust for all the leap years over a period of 476 years that gives you another 116 days and when you add them all up and as I say it's on the notes you will get them the total number of days from March the 14th 445 to April the 6th 32 AD is 173 880 days that is a miracle if you ever doubted that God does miracles that is a miracle that God can say to a group of people in the days of Daniel in 173 880 days from now

[38:40] Messiah will walk through the gates of Jerusalem fulfilling Zechariah 9 verse 9 that's going to happen in about 500 years time and it happened to the day no wonder Jesus said when he wept over Jerusalem and you'll read it in one of the gospel accounts I recommend you read all four gospel accounts because you need to conflate them all to get a full picture but he said to them when he wept over Jerusalem he said if only you had known this your day and it was clear that he expected them to know this it was there for them to find out that's in Luke 19 verse 42 where Jesus says they should have known this date and in that verse he goes on to prophesy to them what the end of Jerusalem will be which of course occurred in AD 70 right Jerusalem was demolished razed to the ground the temple destroyed by fire in AD 70 so we've got this crowd of believers behind him and you may remember that again you need to read the other accounts but the crowd coming out towards him led by members of the

[39:59] Sanhedrin were shouting to Jesus can you tell your disciples to shut up can you quieten them all down they're making a big hullabaloo and he says if they don't cry out the very stones will cry out in other words this is an event worth crying out about and you've got the meeting of these two groups of people a group of believers in adulation a group of religious people who are anti Christ and probably a mixture of people who are sitting on the fence and don't really know what to make of it all interesting parallel though when we read about the second coming haven't got time to go there this morning you see on this occasion he was coming into Jerusalem with a crowd of believers meeting a crowd of his enemies coming the other way in his second coming he will be coming into Jerusalem with a crowd of believers and angels and we'll all be behind him coming into

[41:00] Jerusalem and he'll be going to meet a crowd of his enemies only this time he's not going to be putting himself to death he's going to be putting them to death and they were saying who is this and the reason we know this was a crowd of believers they were shouting Hosanna Son of David well Son of David is a messianic title and so the people coming out said who is this and they said he is Messiah Jesus the prophet from Nazareth so the whole crowd that were with him were utterly convinced of who he was and it was only the people coming out towards him who either didn't know who he was or didn't want to admit in the case of the religious Jews they didn't want to admit to who he was because he had fulfilled all their teachings so they knew who he was but they didn't want the crowd to accept him for reasons we've discussed in previous

[42:00] Bible studies so he turned up and he was proclaimed as Messiah for them to accept or reject the basis upon which right to this day we either get saved or don't get saved is we look at Jesus and we either decide yes he is who he said he was or he isn't who he said he was if he isn't who he said he was you might as well burn your Bibles and all go home and he presented himself for Jerusalem for the Jews to accept and they didn't they rejected him hence he wept over them and he wept because he knew what was available to them but he also knew they would reject him next time he comes he'll be accompanied by this believing army of people and angels and he will make war against a large number of his enemies but right now we live in the good of his salvation and we are so blessed because we don't deserve it but he carried out this event this triumphal entry so that we would always know that he was the

[43:12] Messiah that he fulfilled the word of God that he will continue to fulfill the word of God up to his second coming and meanwhile we are in this period of grace where our eternal security is assured as long as we believe in him father thank you so much for this word I feel like I've scarcely done it justice but I thank you so much that we can put our trust in you and know that you do know the end from the beginning that you were able to save us from our sins and that as history progresses you will save your people Israel from military might you've already done it many times and you will do it many times more but regardless of the outcome of military stuff we are yours forever and we will rest in peace with you and I thank you for that in Jesus name

[44:15]  Amen