Mission 66 (English podcast)
Matthew 21 Welcomed, Yet Rejected
The idea that a regular guy could fulfill all the prophecies about Messiah, duplicate the sorts of things that Jesus did to prove His deity is not only ridiculous, it is laughable. And it would be easier just to believe the gospel account than it would be to try to explain it away as a coincidence or a hoax. This is Mission 66. I'm Rob Dempsey. Today, we continue our focus on the Gospels. Mission 66 originates from the Ministry of Bible Teacher and Pastor Dr. Luis Ciao and is produced and heard in multiple languages around the world in partnership with Trans World Radio. I want to encourage you to take advantage of a valuable resource. You can enhance your understanding of the Gospels by downloading our free study guide. This guide will deepen your experience with God's Word and complement our daily teachings from John Matthews and Esther Sussulu. To access your free study guide of the Gospels, simply visit mission66.org. Pick up this valuable resource and also support the Ministry of Mission 66. Your gift helps sustain this program locally and globally. John Matthews is our teacher. His co-host, Esther Sussulu, gets us started today. Thank you, my dear friend, for joining us today on yet another adventure. We're reading about the decisive moments in Jesus' life as He continues on His mission, fulfilling everything that had been prophesied about Him. I'm your host, Esther, and today our teacher, John Matthews, is going to continue in the Gospel of Matthew, more specifically focusing on chapter 21. And our theme today is "Welcomeed, Yet Rejected." Hi, John. Hi, Esther, great to be with you and hello to all of you, our listeners, wherever you're listening to us to Mission 66 from today. It's great to be with you, so a very warm welcome to you. And as Esther just said there, Jesus is now at this point where He's reaching the end of His ministry here on earth. He's finally arriving in Jerusalem, and at this moment He's going to be welcomed into the holy city of Jerusalem, but not everything about this moment is going to be positive. Not everything will be wonderful when Jesus enters with His message of salvation. And verse 1 says this, "Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth Page to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, and He said to them, 'Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a cold with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say the Lord needs them, and He will send them at once.' This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 'Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold your king is coming to you humble, and mounted on a donkey on a colts, the fold of a beast of burden.' Those words came from Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9. So this Old Testament prophecy is finally being fulfilled. And so Jesus arrives in Jerusalem riding a donkey in a very triumphant, yet humble way, because riding a donkey symbolized that He came in peace. Then it says in verse 7, "They brought the donkey and the colts, and put on them their cloaks, and He sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road. Others cut branches from the trees, and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, 'Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.' We see here this scene that's popularly traditionally known as Palm Sunday, reminding us of what Jesus did that day as He entered, the city of Jerusalem being welcomed, pretty much by all as a king. Then it says, when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, 'Who is this?' and the crowd said, 'Well, this is the Prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.' You see, Jesus is the messianic king, the son of God, not just a prophet from Nazareth, but He was not recognised as being Messiah, even though the crowd welcomes Him waving palm branches with festive and joyful hosannas, the crowd recognises Him only as a prophet. They really have no idea who He really is, which is the son of God. And on we go to verse 12, and Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who are selling pigeons. You see, Jesus is outraged with their behaviour and says, 'It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer,' quoting the book of Isaiah chapter 56, but you make it a den of robbers. But Jesus cries out against this commercialism going on inside the temple, and He does what is traditionally known as the purification of the temple, knocking over the money-changers' tables and chasing them out. And this really was a sign, a prophecy that the temple would receive judgment from God, and therefore would be torn down, and this actually was to happen in the year 70 when the Romans came in and destroyed the temple. Unless anyone think that Jesus was just an angry man prophet, verse 14 says that He healed several blind and lame people who had come in. He was again, was an immerciful to the ones who sought mercy and tough toward the ones who acted proudly. The Matthew continues in verse 15 saying, 'But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant. They said to him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?' Jesus said to them, 'Yes, have you never read, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise?' You see, we talked in a previous episode about the faith of the child, and hear the little children knew something that these proud priests and Pharisees did not. Jesus was indeed welcomed by some, and rejected by others. Verse 18, 'In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry, and seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it, and found nothing on it, but only leaves, and he said, 'To the tree may no fruit ever come from you again, and the tree withered at once. When the disciples saw this, they marvel, saying, 'How did the fig tree wither at once?' And Jesus answered them, 'Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith.' Yeah, wow, he's really saying some very striking things about prayer, isn't he, John? Yeah, he surely is Esther, in fact, this statement and others like it seem to indicate that if we have enough faith, we can receive anything that we pray for. You might remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that everyone who asks receives. Most of us perhaps stagger a little bit at that statement, but Esther, either Jesus was divine and speaking for God the Father and knew exactly what he was saying, or he was the biggest liar and deceiver that ever lived. Now, I choose to believe that Jesus meant exactly what he said, and it encourages me to pray bigger prayers, reminding myself that God has no limitations. He can do it and expand my own mind to permit what may be possible rather than saying, "Ah, it just can't happen." So Jesus encourages belief and condemns doubt. Is anything impossible to God? Can it be that our problem is that we simply don't believe the words of Jesus here? If not, we might as well admit it. We're asking the Lord to increase our faith. But there's another element you see to this account because the fig tree is a symbol of Israel. And so the cursing of the fig tree as well as the purification of the temple were both meant to point toward the future destruction of the temple. But why? Why? Because the nation as a whole did not recognize this Messiah when he came. Their king is being welcomed as a hero here, yet soon he's going to be rejected as we'll see. And verse 23 says, "The chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was there teaching and said, 'By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?' And Jesus answered them, 'I will ask you one question and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things, the baptism of John. From where did it come? From heaven or from man?' And then they discussed this among themselves saying, 'If we say from heaven, he'll say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him? But if we say from man, we're afraid of the crowd for they all hold that John was a prophet.' So they answered Jesus, 'We do not know.' And he said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.' You see here the religious leaders did not really want to know the truth. They only wished to discredit Jesus in front of people and therefore Jesus pulls the masks away from these religious men who weren't really interested in knowing what God had to say or teach them. They only wanted to make Jesus look bad and as we just read it didn't work. This is Mission 66 and we're exploring the 66 books of the Bible and wow we're studying Matthew chapter 21 with our teacher John Matthews who is showing us just how Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem by the common man but he was rejected by those religious elite. Well John I know you have more for us. Yeah let's read on because in verse 28 Jesus tells these religious opponents a couple of parables. This is what he says, 'A man had two sons and he went to the first and said, 'Son go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, 'I will not but afterward he changed his mind and he went and he went to the other son and said the same and he answered, 'I go sir but he did not go.' Which of the two did the will of his father? Well they said the first and Jesus said to them, 'Truly I say to you the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him but the tax collectors and the prostitutes were they believed him and even when you saw it you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.' You know this is surprising but often true, those who are considered the most marginalized people in society, those who are considered the most marginalized people in society maybe because of their status or because of crimes they may have committed. It is sometimes they who become Jesus' best followers because they know they are in need of help. They understand and realize their sin. They cannot help but be honest about their state. Perhaps because they are near a rock bottom. They gladly listen to his words and they repent believing the gospel but then there are other people who say, 'Yes, yeah, yeah, Lord sounds good, you know, whatever you say, Lord, off they go and do not do what he asked.' Neither do they learn from the example set by those who do follow Jesus and so Jesus is directing this word to the Pharisees who were full of pride and prejudice against others believing themselves to be superior and so he tells them another parable saying. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and he put a fence around this vineyard and then dug a winepress in it and built a tower and then he leased it to tenants and he went away into another country. When the season for fruit drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit and the tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another. Again he sent other servants more than the first and they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them saying, 'Well they will respect my son' but when the tenants saw the son they said to themselves, 'This is the heir, come, let us kill him and half his inheritance' and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. And therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, 'What will he do to those tenants?' Well they said to him, 'Will you put those wretches to a miserable death, let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons?' And Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.' Quoting Psalm 118 they're showing how the people and their leaders have been rejecting the Son of God in the same way that in the past they'd rejected the prophets and this is how Jesus finishes chapter 21 of Matthew and the one who falls on this stone, speaking of himself there as the cornerstone and when it falls on anyone it will crush him and when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables they perceived that he was speaking about them and although they were seeking to arrest him they feared the crowds because the crowds held him to be a prophet. So John as you were reading that Scripture you mentioned cornerstone. What is a cornerstone and what is the Scripture trying to tell us here? Yeah the cornerstone in construction Esther is this stone on which the entire construction is built. The cornerstone has to have a perfect 90 degree right angle so that the rest of the foundations will be geometrically aligned and if the cornerstone is off even a little bit the whole building you know will look lopsided and maybe compromised and so Jesus is trying to say with this expression here that there was a perfect stone to be used on the construction of historical Israel and this stone was Jesus himself. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone the Lord has done this and it is marvellous in our eyes at Psalm 118 well who are the builders spoken of there? Well the people of old Israel and their leaders. Now this stone is not just any stone it is the cornerstone on which everything will be lined up so the people who were working directly on this construction were the ones who did not recognize who ended up rejecting the foundational stone of the whole nation. Welcome yes my dear listeners by those who wanted God's kingdom but rejected by those who were really only interested in preserving their own positions of power wealth and status and so it is in many respects today. Yeah I would agree with that John you know when I think of the image of the people welcoming Jesus with palm branches and singing Hosanna calling him the son of David really my heart is so warmed but do these particular things have any significance? Yeah it is it's a moment it feels like almost a moment of triumph and hope this doesn't it and you're right Esther the palm branch does have significance because it was a sign of a other strong nation and it was a nationalism sign I suppose you could call it and Hosanna means save and now because most people expected the Messianic king to come in raise up an army and be victorious to save them from from the Romans as they saw it and make Israel powerful again like it was in the days of of David and Solomon this is what people were kind of picturing and Jesus is called the son of David here in the sense that he comes to the genealogical line of David therefore he has a right to the throne and the reality is the day is coming when Jesus will come in power and might and rule with total authority but that day is not yet that comes in the future return of Christ and here we see Jesus preparing himself and and coming humbly to the cross the first time not with the use of strength and great power but of humility and he's able to save but that means to save us from the penalty and power of our sins and destroy the works of the devil and that is the most important victory this king has won for us you know I always think that it's important for us to make notes as we go through the study of God's word here John but one thing I noted is how the Bible talks about people changing money and selling doves and sheep in the temple and that Jesus was so angry at seeing that display what does it mean does it mean that we can't sell anything at church oh I don't think God cares if you sell something at church Esther what have you got in mind actually what do you think you sell well I have some things in mind I'm not sure I'll put it out here right now but you know could have a thing would you well I tell you what I would I'd be buying I'm for sure I'm for sure I would be buying I'd like that and you know you're right Jesus not against that at all but I think the point here is that the temple was a central place of worship back then and people would come from great distance to worship even from actually other countries and so it was inconvenient for people coming from places far places to bring animals for sacrifice so there were these greedy merchants who saw this as an opportunity to sell animals to the long distance visitors and an exorbitant prices so it became a common practice to make a bit of a fast buck or dollar from the tourists now the foreigners brought money from their home country would have to be exchanged for the coin of the realm and that was at a really high exchange rate as well so these merchants were exploiting people who would only come here to worship God and Jesus was righteously angry when he saw his father's house of worship being turned into what was a bit of a circus for money grabbers yeah absolutely that that definitely makes sense and you know I think about all these prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus the the question has I imagine has been raised that if Jesus was say an opportunist who wanted to make himself the Messiah right couldn't he have just like made a checklist and and fulfilled each prophecy one by one on purpose to make sure that he comes across as the Messiah yeah I see what you're saying and and the answer I guess is no for a number of reasons and first of all that there are too many of them in fact I mean do you know how many Old Testament prophecies concerning Messiah there are well you know scholars differ on the number you can research it online for sure but a conservative estimate is that there are at least 300 so there are loads of them secondly prophecy contains too many little details the probability that someone would have been born at the right place at the right time and do everything written in the prophets well you would have had to have an ox cart just to carry all the manuscripts that contained these prophecies and he would need to be constantly checking to see if he was doing everything right and fulfilling every single detail of all these prophecies so you know impossible and thirdly he'd have to follow a strict timeline I mean from birth to death Micah predicted where he would be born which is Bethlehem if you couldn't prove you were born there you couldn't be the Messiah the prophet Daniel in chapter 9 predicts the exact year that Christ would be crucified try researching that one online enter the the 70 weeks of Daniel and see what you find so it comes down to this very slim time slot within which the Messiah could have been crucified now if Jesus was not the Messiah once that year passed nobody else would have qualified ever if he missed even one prophecy he couldn't go back and try again because the time would have passed but you know I actually asked her I think the strongest argument here is that Jesus fulfilled prophecies by rising from the dead and we're going to read about that magnificent part of his his journey here on earth very soon when we look at Matthew 28 that is going to be something special and let's say I'd like to see anybody try to fake to fake that one you know when you consider the miracles that he did walking on the water the raising of dead people and it could go on and honest it couldn't I you know if the only prophecy about Messiah was entering Jerusalem on a donkey then I guess someone maybe could have done that as a bit of a hoax and fooled everybody but the idea that a regular guy could fulfill all the prophecies about Messiah and duplicate the sorts of things that Jesus did to prove his deity well it's not only ridiculous it's it's laughable isn't it it's never going to happen it would be easier just to believe the gospel account than it would be to try and explain it away as a coincidence or a hoax or something like that oh yeah you've definitely made the case there John thank you for that explanation well you know before we end the program how can we summarize this chapter as we usually do yeah let's do that because our theme in this episode was welcomed yet rejected yes Jesus fulfilled ancient prophecies all during his earthly ministry arriving at the city of Jerusalem triumphantly they're riding on a donkey in a fulfillment of Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9 but he was not recognized as who he really was by the religious leaders of the city and plenty more besides he demonstrates mercy to those who would repent and receive him he heals the sick but preaches against the attitudes of the religious hypocrites which only made them hate him more you know this part of Matthew records the final week of Jesus's life and within a short time those who were now hailing him with these palm branches would soon be calling in a matter of days for his death but my dear friends listening it was all according to God's plan which has worked out to the salvation of many and we're looking forward to seeing just how God's plan unfolds in our next episode of mission 66 I want to thank you for joining us here today friend as we've walked through the book of Matthew 21 with John Matthews I really hope that you will join us in the next episode where we'll continue learning about the life and the teachings of Jesus the Lord until then God bless you. Has God used today's program in your life then you'll want to receive the free study guide of the gospels that we've prepared you can get it right away by downloading it at mission 66.org review what you've heard on our series in the gospels and have the guide handy for the next program visit mission 66.org and download your free study guide of the gospels at mission 66.org you can also leave a comment or make a donation to help this listener support ministry thank you for helping mission 66 continue here and around the world pick up your study guide of the gospels at mission 66.org mission 66 is a ministry of trans world radio I'm Rob Dempsey. [Music] (upbeat music)