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The king arrives as promised. He enters the temple as the sheep are being chosen for the Passover feast. The crowds welcome their king and the authorities are offended. The time has come to fulfil Genesis 3:15.

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan. I’m here with my dad, David Jackson. We are continuing to work through the book of Matthew. Today We’re up to Matthew chapter 21. Dad, Jesus is about to grab a donkey, sit on it, ride into Jerusalem. He’s gonna have palm branches laid down in front of him. Everyone’s singing songs of the, you know, as you walk up to the temple or coming, it’s Passover, right? This is the day that they select the Passover lamb as they are coming in? So lots of really big, imagery, I guess that’s happening here. Lots of symbolism that Jesus is really quite clearly fulfilling. He’s coming in. He’s obviously not coming in for battle. He’s not riding a horse. He’s not, you know, saying I’m coming back. He’s not going out either to battle he’s coming in. So he’s meant to be, not a battle, but he’s about to have a battle he is, but not the kind of battle that his disciples have been thinking about. So tell me, what’s the significance of this triumphal entry? Why does he need to be riding a, a donkey donkey? of all things. I mean, I wouldn’t have even, I would never choose to ride donkey

David: (01:05)
oh, oh, come back to Israel. Maybe I love donkeys. One of the things we’ve gotta watch with Matthews gospel is ”he doesn’t talk about time a lot. So between the last scene we had of healing, the blind man in Jericho. And what we’re gonna find in chapter 21, between those two events he’s been hanging out in Bethany. he’s been hanging out in another town Ephraim. He he’s probably been there for 10 days. and in that time he’s raised Lazarus from the dead. All these things have happened and Matthew’s left all of that out and he’s jumped straight from healing, the blind man in Jericho to time to enter Jerusalem. During that time, Jesus has obviously lined up the donkey. So there’s, there’s things going on in the background that, we don’t hear about. you guys go into town, grab the donkey. Well, the town is somewhere on the Eastern slope of the Mount of olives. It’s outta Jerusalem, go get the donkey, get everything set up. And we go. Riding the donkey is a statement about the nature of God’s king. He is not the warrior on the horse. So in the notes, I’ve put a picture of, Alexander, the great riding on his Bucephilus, the horse that he decided was a god .

Dan: (02:42)
Of course he did.

David: (02:42)
Of course he did. Yeah. But he was a god, the horse is a god, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And he’s, he’s the great hero in battle. Jesus comes in, sitting on a donkey. What’s he saying all the way through the old Testament, you don’t put your trust in your weapons. You don’t put your trust in your chariots and your horses don’t bother collecting them. If you want to win a battle, all you gotta do is pray and Yahweh will do it for you. If you’re faithful, God will take care of it. If you’re not faithful or you’re on your own. And I don’t care how big your horse is, you’re toast. So this is our contrast. Here comes our king, humble riding on a donkey and not just a donkey he’s riding on a yearling colt that has never been ridden on. Now, if you know anything about donkeys, you don’t like smooth riding do you.

David: (03:36)
An untrained. Donkey’s gonna bite you, kick you and buck you off. But the Lord of all takes an untrained, unbroken, donkey, and exercises his dominion peacefully. And that’s, that’s another picture of our king is the king of peace. So he rides in and he does a, he does a recce. He looks around the temple and he goes back to Bethany, spends the night and comes in in the morning and starts a riot. and, and you just, you, you love the way that’s happening. But on this day, the Sunday, this is a, this is Sunday morning when he rides that donkey in this is the day that you have to select your lamb, that you’re going to kill. So you select the lamb on the 10th of Nissan. Sunday, you take it home. The 14th and Nissan is Thursday at sundown on Thursday, you’re gonna cut its throat and kill it.

David: (04:40)
So if this is the day we’re gonna select our lamb, he may be riding on a donkey, but Hey, he is the lamb. So lots and lots of themes, all interacting in here. And the crowds during Passover, they sing a selection of hymns of psalms, a hundred, 113 to 118. They’re called the Hallel. And one of them is 118. And we get a couple of verses out of it, you know, hosanna to the son of David. Well, hosanna means Lord, save us. it’s, it’s not hallelujah. Praise the Lord. It’s save us. So as they’re singing that and open the gates and let him in, the king of glory, he’s coming to save him. He’s coming to save. Now, if you read through the rest, of Psalm 118, there’s the capstone that the builders rejected. It’s all packed away in this, these songs that tell you what you’re looking at. And normally you would expect the king on this occasion to be crowned So if you go through Saul or, you know, David’s enthronement, and you’ve got that sequence of how you thrown a king at this point, he should be enthroned, but he’s not.

Dan: (05:58)
no, he will get a crown pretty soon though.

David: (06:00)
He will get a crown pretty soon. What’s in what I found interesting was Caiaphas was the high priest, who’s gonna order Jesus’ execution. Caiaphas in AD thirty so the first year of Jesus’ ministry, apparently, ordered that the animal sales and the money changes who used to sell on the north side of the temple. And over on the Mount of Olives, they’d sell all these animals. We’re talking thousands of animals. They were allowed to extend their sail yards into the court of the Gentiles. So Caiaphas AD 30makes that rule.

Dan: (06:38)
And that Jesus has an issue with,

David: (06:39)
And, and that’s the year that Jesus starts his public ministry. And he goes to Passover. And that year it’s full of these animals and money. And he, he starts a riot day, one. Yeah. And three years later, he is back and starts to, they haven’t

Dan: (06:54)
Fixed it. Well, he probably did it every year. Let’s be one 12 , you know, time he went and he is like, ah, still haven’t fixed it. Ah, chase them out.

David: (07:01)
And, and what’s the problem. The problem is you, haven’t got your eyes on the Lord. You haven’t got your eyes on any perspective of the kingdom of God. All you’re doing is making yourself king and yourself rich and doing as much as you can, to be the center of the universe. And in, as they condemn him, his actions, you’ve turned my house into a into a cave of robbers. and that’s his accusation against the high priest.

Dan: (07:34)
Yeah. Which then comes back that they come back at him and start accusing him and saying, you know, what gives you the right to do this? What authority have you got, et cetera. which if you know about Jesus, you know, it’s his temple. , he’s the new temple. He’s God, he’s the king. He’s everything in one. So he has all the authority.

David: (07:55)
Goodness, me.

Dan: (07:57)
Yeah. And I think Jesus’ response to the parable of the two sons. yeah. You’ve got your, your two sons are very differing responses here in this story. And I think, you know, he is, it’s very, he’s very much targeting those who are accusing him and saying, basically, they’re the son. And he’s like, no,

David: (08:19)
yeah. You’re looking at rep looking at the people who they may have a bad reaction to Jesus, but repent and go, oh, heck, I’ve got it wrong. I’ll go and fix it. I’ll go and do the right thing. That concept of repentance, he’s implying that the door is open for you guys to change your mind. And what’s really exciting when you get to Acts is so many of the priests and Pharisees did repent and believe in Jesus. Mm. We tend to skip over that. Cuz there are bad guys in the gospel but it’s sign. But Paul and, and Luke notes that the occasions when these guys did become disciples, you know, what have we done is a, is a great moment.

Dan: (09:01)
So Dad, the last thing that Jesus does in this chapter is tell the parable of the landowners. Yeah. So I think it’s very fitting that that comes in here as well, where you’ve got people arguing over who has the rights over, it’s essentially a bit of land . Yeah. But it’s also the element of who’s the right to rule over this land as well, I guess.

David: (09:22)
Yeah. And the, and just, what is the relationship between these religious leaders and God? these guys are acting as if they own the land. They’re supposed to be the great Bible teachers. They’re supposed to be the experts in Bible. They are, you know, searching the scriptures. They’re called rabbi great teacher. We’ve got all these great titles, but Jesus does this wonderful thing. Haven’t you read in the scriptures and he does it several times. You know, haven’t you read the text, you great expert sarcasm everywhere. And what he’s done is he’s taken the same parable that Isaiah told in chapter five. And he’s just said, you know, you guys are all out there. You, you, you like Isaiah, you can teach O Isaiah. That’s great. But Isaiah told the parable about you clowns. You’re the guys who fail to produce righteousness and justice.

David: (10:25)
You know, we’re not, it’s a riddle. The land is God’s kingdom. Yeah. The, the tenants are the people who under God are supposed to be looking after it. That’d be you. Yeah. And instead of that, instead of producing the fruit of righteousness, you guys think you own the place and you’ve been killing the prophets when God sent messages to you to smarten up And if you understood anything of that parable, guess who the sun is that you’re about to kill. And you just love the moment, the magic moment right there at the end of chapter, 21 where he, where, where you have this little comment and they figured out that he told the parable about them. and so you have this ironic reaction. Oh dear. How morally outrageous that he would accuse us of killing the son of God.

Dan: (11:25)
Let’s kill him.

David: (11:25)
Let’s kill him.

Dan: (11:29)
Can’t say God doesn’t have a sense of humor.

David: (11:31)
Yeah. I mean, how in your face could it be? Yeah. and there, there we pause. because we’re, for the rest of the week, Jesus is gonna come into the temple. He’s gonna set up his little rabbi teaching place. he’s gonna ignore these clowns and he’s just gonna teach people from the Bible and he’s gonna heal all these people and

Dan: (11:54)
Nothing they can, what are you gonna do about it?

David: (11:56)
Yeah. He’s got it. Timed and it’s all under control.

Dan: (11:59)
Well, now that brings us to the end of this episode. If you wanna grab the study notes for this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/78. We would love if you enjoyed the episode, if you’re enjoying, listening to us for you to leave a review, to make sure you do that, we would love to hear from you that sense. And please make sure you hit the subscribe button, come back and join us again next week, where we’ll continue to work our way through Matthew heading into chapter 22. Thank two. So we’ll see you next week.