The Triumphal Entry

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I want to invite you to open up your Bible to the Gospel of Mark.
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It's going to be in the 11th chapter this morning, Mark chapter 11.
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And you hold your place at verse 1.
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Now, over the next few weeks, we are going to be preparing for the celebration of Resurrection Sunday.
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Always the high point of worship for the year.
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A lot of people think that Christmas is the high point of Christian worship.
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Christmas is a fun time, it's an enjoyable time, and it's obvious that we want to celebrate the birth of Christ.
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But the reality is that the more worshipful time for the believer is Resurrection Sunday.
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That day which Jesus came out of the grave and demonstrated to the world that he was who he had claimed to be, the very Son of God.
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So, this year, as we look forward to Resurrection Sunday, it's four Sundays from today.
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I want us to look at some of the events which led up to the resurrection of Christ.
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And I have entitled this series, Revisiting Holy Week.
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Now, what is Holy Week? Holy Week refers to the time which begins with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and ends with his resurrection the next Sunday.
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Some have called it the week that changed the world.
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In fact, this week is so significant that Mark actually devotes over one third of his narrative.
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Over one third of the whole Gospel of Mark is devoted to just this one week.
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To the events starting, as we see, we're starting here in Mark chapter 11.
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Mark is 16 chapters long and it goes through that whole week is the rest of the book.
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And because of the vast amount of scriptural information, because it's a whole third of the book of Mark, there's no way we're going to be able to exegete every text and every situation that happened during that week.
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So, instead, we're going to focus on four significant areas.
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This week, we're going to look at the triumphal entry.
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Next week, we're going to look at Christ's purging of the temple.
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Remember, he went into the temple and he threw out the money changers.
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And as a result, he brought the political establishment strongly against him.
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That was part and parcel of what caused the push for his crucifixion.
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Then in the third week, we're going to look at the last Passover service.
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And that will be the week before we celebrate the Seder here.
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And then on Resurrection Sunday, I'll be preaching two sermons.
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I'll be preaching a sermon outside during our morning service, which we have, the sunrise service.
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I'm going to be preaching on the trials of Jesus, the actual trials and crucifixion of Christ.
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And then that Sunday morning, I'll preach on his resurrection.
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So that's where we're going to be over the next month of study.
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And all in all, we will see an overview of Holy Week as it is given to us in Scripture.
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And I hope that you will all seek to attend this series, be here for every Sunday, as I believe it will be beneficial in your understanding of the purpose and power of the season, which is foundational to Christian faith.
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And as I said today, we're going to be beginning with what started Holy Week, that event called the triumphal entry.
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So I want to invite you to stand as we read the word of God.
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We're going to read the first 11 verses of Mark chapter 11.
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Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, go into the village in front of you.
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And immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.
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Untie it and bring it.
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If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say the Lord has need of it and we'll send it back here immediately.
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And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street and they untied it.
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And some of those standing there said to them, what are you doing untying the colt? And they told them what Jesus had said and they let them go.
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And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it.
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And many spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.
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And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
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Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David.
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Hosanna in the highest.
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And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.
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And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
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Let's pray together.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for again this opportunity to examine your word and study it together.
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As we begin this series on Holy Week, I pray, O Lord, that you would minister to us through this study.
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I pray that you would keep me from error.
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I pray that you would open the people's heart to the truth.
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And Lord God, use this time to glorify your name and to bless us with your presence.
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We pray all this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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The story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey is one that is ingrained in the minds of many believers.
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Some of us think about the story and our imaginations begin to think of when we first heard that story, kind of imagining what it would have been like to see Jesus riding on the back of a donkey into Jerusalem.
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Others may go back to pictures in our minds of films that have been made.
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Some of us have seen films, and most of us have seen a film about Jesus' life at some point, and you think about that one picture of all these palm fronds going up, and here is Jesus of Nazareth sitting on a donkey walking into Jerusalem.
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And every year, the week prior to Resurrection Sunday, churches all over the world celebrate Palm Sunday.
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For years, we've done this.
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We go out and we cut palm branches off the trees and we decorate the church with palm branches as symbols of this wonderful event.
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However, many churches who celebrate this do so without ever really pondering its actual spiritual and biblical significance.
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And the truth be told, this event and its significance has been greatly debated throughout history.
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Some in history have debated, have interpreted rather, Jesus' actions of riding into Jerusalem on a donkey as a clever means of trying to garner popular support or popular sympathy.
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They said that Jesus was trying to use this action as a way to elevate his grassroots campaign to be made the King of the Jews.
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And his position of Israel was a political one, some argue, and that he was trying to do this to try to beef up his support.
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Sort of like when a modern-day presidential candidate might go to a small town and do a stump speech to try to gather a large crowd of people around so that he can sort of start his support in an area.
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And that's how some see this action of Jesus.
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In fact, Nietzsche, who was not a believer in any way, in fact, Nietzsche was anti-Christ in his beliefs and in his behavior.
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Nietzsche said this, he said that the triumphal entry of Jesus was his last failed attempt to win the nation of Israel before he died.
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So that's how it's viewed by an unbeliever.
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This is Jesus' political stump speech.
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This is his last attempt to sort of make his political power solidified.
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So we see that there are many who think that this, at least from a political standpoint, from a social standpoint, that this event in the life of Jesus was sort of a failed strategy.
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There are some, even conservatives, who take this position.
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There are some in the conservative camp who argue that Jesus' intention in going into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was that his action was to give the people of Israel one last chance to accept him as their king.
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And only after that failure to do so did he decide to go to the cross.
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That's the perspective of some people.
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Obviously, those of us who believe in God's sovereignty, we don't look at the cross as an afterthought.
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We don't look at the cross as something that Jesus did because something else didn't work.
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We know that he set his face to go to the cross.
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He set his heart to go to the cross.
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And the reason why he was born was to go to that cross so that he could die for us.
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So the whole idea that this was his last vain attempt to get it done another way.
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And since it didn't work, he went to the cross instead.
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That to me is foolish.
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But there are some who have made such an argument.
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But the question still stands.
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Well, if this wasn't a political move by Christ and it wasn't an attempt to get the people of Israel to change and not have to go to the cross, what was the purpose then? What was the reason? In fact, why did he go into Jerusalem just to go back to Bethpage? Did you notice that in the text? Go back to the last verse.
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And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.
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And when he looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the trump.
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Why did he go in and go back out? He came from Bethany.
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It was to make a point.
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And it wasn't to make a point.
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It was to fulfill a prophecy.
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In fact, that's the most important part of this whole event.
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The significance of the palm branches, the shouts of Hosanna and the garments thrown at his feet is not that Jesus is trying to raise popular support.
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It's not that he's trying to make a political move.
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It is that he is doing exactly what the Bible said that he would do some 500 years earlier.
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500 years before Christ, there was a prophet in Israel whose name was Zechariah.
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The prophet Zechariah prophesied the same time as another whose name was Haggai.
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So if you ever read the books of Haggai and Zechariah, those two are prophesying contemporaneously.
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And Zechariah's mission was to urge the people of Israel to complete the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem after their great exile.
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His prophecies are contained in the book that bears his name in the Old Testament.
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And among his prophecies, we come to chapter 9 and verse 9.
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We've already read it in our opening this morning, but I want to go back there very quickly.
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So if you would, just take and hold your place in Mark and go back to Zechariah.
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When you get to Zechariah, go to chapter 9 and look at verse 9 again with me.
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This is what is known as a messianic prophecy.
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Messianic prophecy is a statement which is made about the coming of the Messiah prior to his coming.
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You've heard me say, and you've probably heard many Bible teachers say, that Jesus is all through the Bible.
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He's not just in the New Testament, but we find Jesus all the way back to the book of Genesis.
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There is mentioning of the one who would come and crush the head of the serpent.
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The promised seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.
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And then we get into the book of Deuteronomy, which we studied last Wednesday, which talks about the great prophet who would rise up like unto Moses and the people should follow him.
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This is reference to Christ.
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Well, there are these authors.
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There are over 100 specific messianic prophecies throughout the 39 books of the Old Testament.
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And one of them is found here in Zechariah 9 and verse 9.
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Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Jerusalem.
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Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.
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Actually, O daughter of Zion is the first and O daughter of Jerusalem is the second there.
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Behold, your king is coming to you.
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Righteous and having salvation is he.
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Humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
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Now later, if you turn with me to Matthew 21, Matthew is great in that Matthew is written specifically to the Jews.
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So Matthew often tells us when there's a prophecy fulfilled, he explains it to us.
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So if you turn over to Matthew 21 and verse 4, you'll see here, talking about the triumphal entry, it says in verse 4, this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, the prophet being Zechariah, by the prophet saying, say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey and a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.
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Right there is Matthew telling us this event in the life of Christ is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah.
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We don't have to guess.
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We don't have to wonder.
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You know, some people, some people get real creative in their interpretations of Scripture and especially interpretations of prophecies.
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And some people try to really read things in that aren't there.
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But in this particular prophecy, there's no doubt.
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There's no debate.
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Matthew, who wrote the book of Matthew, tells us exactly what this prophecy of Zechariah was.
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It was a prophecy.
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And when it was fulfilled, it was fulfilled on the day of the triumphal entry.
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So herein lies the truth of what Jesus was doing.
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He is not seeking that the people make him the Messiah.
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He was already the Messiah.
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He was not seeking that the people make him the king of the Jews.
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He was already the king of the Jews by God's coronation.
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This was the people's coronation of him, but God had already, he was born king of the Jews.
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This was not his way of garnering a grassroots supporter, creating a political move.
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This was Jesus's fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy.
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And it was the declaration that he was, in fact, the king of the Jews.
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And in fact, the king of the world.
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Some writers of the more political, I'm sorry, the more liberal persuasion.
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I don't know how I could have gotten those two confused.
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Some people of the more liberal persuasion have made accusations against this event in the life of Christ.
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One of the accusations that has been leveled against Jesus is that this event was staged by Christ simply to fulfill a prophecy.
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It was that Jesus simply staged this event to fulfill a prophecy.
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Well, in one sense, that's sort of hard to argue against.
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This is one of the few times that Jesus could have done something to fulfill a prophecy himself.
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The problem is there are so many other things that happened in the life of Christ that were fulfillment of prophecies that Jesus had no control over.
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Such as the man who gambled for his clothes while he was on the cross.
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That's a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that was prophesied in the Psalms that that would happen.
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Jesus had no control over that.
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And there are many others like that.
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But this is one of the times where people who say it's staged.
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But there are others in the liberal camp who've made this argument.
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They say the event never happened.
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They say this was actually something that the apostles wrote about the life of Jesus that actually never occurred.
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That Jesus never had this much popularity.
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Jesus never would have had this much support at any time in history.
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So what the apostles did was they anachronistically went back and wrote it into the narrative.
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Now how would you respond to such a claim? Well first and foremost we say well we as Bible believers we accept the Bible at face value and what it says we believe.
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And that's simple enough.
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But there's other reasons why to believe this particular account.
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Number one and simply the writers of scripture wrote at a time when people who were there were still alive.
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Matthew is writing somewhere in the mid 50's.
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Along with Mark and Luke are all writing in the mid 50's.
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John wrote his gospel sometime later.
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These are people who were still alive when Jesus walked the earth.
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They're living with people who were still alive when Jesus walked the earth.
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Don't you think if they wrote Jesus on the week prior to his death was lauded and hurrahed on the way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
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Don't you think somebody would say hey I was there that didn't happen.
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Don't you think somebody would call foul if this wasn't an actual event.
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That's one of the things people forget.
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These books, these books of the Bible, these narratives, these are written during the life of these people who actually saw it.
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They could have come out and said no this is all a farce.
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But they didn't.
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The reason is because this is an absolutely true story that occurred in the life of Christ.
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It occurred to fulfill the promise of Scripture that the king of Jerusalem would come into Jerusalem riding on the colt, the foal of a donkey.
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So let's look at the text.
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Let's walk through the text forgetting the arguments of the liberals who are always seeking to defame Scripture and simply look and see what we learn from the text itself.
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It says in verse one that when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them go into the village in front of you and immediately as you enter it you'll find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.
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Untie it and bring it.
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Now before we go any further in the text, let's go over a few things in the narrative here and make sure that we understand.
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Bethany is a place east of Jerusalem where Jesus's close friends Lazarus who had two sisters Mary and Martha.
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This event is taking place almost immediately after the situation with Lazarus, which is the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead.
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It was not too many days earlier that Lazarus had died and Jesus had resurrected him and the walk from Bethany to Jerusalem was only about two miles, which was a trek that took you up over the Mount of Olives and through the Kidron Valley.
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If you've ever seen a map, we always think of like the Mount of Olives being this big mountain.
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If you've ever seen pictures, it's a hill.
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It's the Hill of Olives.
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It wasn't, but that was the trek.
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It was a two mile trek from Bethany over through the Kidron Valley to get to Jerusalem.
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And while there, Jesus gives two of his disciples a mission.
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He says, I want you to go.
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I want you to go to this place and there's going to be a cult there, a donkey.
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I want you to bring it back to me.
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Now we've already seen that the donkey is in Zechariah's prophecy.
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He said that's what Jesus is going to ride on.
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So this is simply a fulfillment of that prophecy.
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But the question comes and it's something actually I thought about before.
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Why a donkey? Why is that such an important part of the story? Why not a horse? A majestic white horse.
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Here Jesus is his coronation, his king.
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He's riding into Jerusalem.
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He's going to be, they're going to sing Hosannas to his name.
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Why not a majestic horse? Why not gallop into town with great glory and honor, challenging the religious authority? Take that whip and get him out of there.
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Why would God choose that his king would come on a donkey? Well, the reason is that it was the donkey and not the war horse that signified Christ's mission most properly.
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Christ was not coming into Jerusalem as a conqueror.
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What did he say to Pontius Pilate? He said, if I were here to be made king, don't you think that my followers would rise up and make me king? But that's not his purpose.
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He came into the world as the prince of peace.
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Now, of course, he did say that he said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword.
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And that sword he meant was the sword that would divide friends and family over the gospel.
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But he would never ride in Jerusalem and take Jerusalem by force.
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It was not his goal.
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And the peace that was shown in his humility by riding into town humbly mounted on a donkey was the peace that he was demonstrating rather than boasting the power of the mighty steed.
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And not just any donkey would do for this trip into Jerusalem.
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Jesus wanted a specific donkey.
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He said he wants one on which no one had ever sat.
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And that's important because Jewish tradition regarded such animals as specially suited for royalty.
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A donkey that no one had ever sat on was very important.
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The custom was that animals which were to be used for certain religious rites must have never been previously ridden, burdened or harnessed for labor.
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And you can find this in Numbers 19, Deuteronomy 21 and 1 Samuel 6.
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That's the rule.
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That an animal had never been used before.
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That's for royalty.
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So again, it's a demonstration of Jesus's royalty.
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And the story goes on.
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Jesus gives another insight into the procurement of the animal.
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He says, if anyone says to you, verse 3, if anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.
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And they went and found the colt tied outside in the street and they untied it.
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And some of them were standing there.
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Some of them standing there said to them, what are you doing? Untying the colt.
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And they told them what Jesus had said.
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And they let them go.
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Here we see two important things in that portion of the story.
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Number one, the omniscience of Jesus Christ is displayed.
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He knows where the donkey is going to be, what it's going to be doing and how everything's going to work out.
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He even knows they're going to get some flack for doing this because they're going up and taking a donkey that's not theirs.
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I heard an atheist one time.
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Jesus is telling them to go steal a donkey.
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Atheists will look for anything.
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I probably, I spend a lot of time listening to arguments, not because I entertain arguments, but because it's my heart to want to be able to give responses to people.
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And some of the arguments I hear are silly.
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And that's one of the silly ones I hear.
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Well, Jesus is encouraging theft.
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No, of course not.
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But he does foresee the dispute in taking it.
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He says, go, there'll be a donkey there, untie it, bring it back to me.
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And if anyone says, what are you doing? Tell them the Lord has need of it.
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Notice he's also demonstrating not only his omniscience, but his reputation.
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Because he didn't say, tell them Jesus has need of it or Jesus of Nazareth has need of it or the Lord Jesus Christ has need of it.
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Just say the Lord has need of it and they will know that it's for me and that we'll bring it back later.
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That's an important point.
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Why do you think he was so, that his reputation had grown so much in the area? Could it be that just a few days later he raised a guy from the dead in that same town? You think anybody would have any doubt when he walked up and said the Lord has need of it? Which Lord? No doubt.
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So his reputation, as well as his omniscience, is displayed in this short statement to them.
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So then they bring it back, verse 7, And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.
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And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the field.
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Now, spreading one's garments was a way in the ancient world of showing homage to royalty.
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In fact, the scene is reminiscent of the scene in the life of King Jehu in the Old Testament.
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Jehu was an anointed king, and afterwards we read these words in 2 Kings 9.13 Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on his bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed Jehu as king.
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That's from, again, 2 Kings 9.
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It's royalty.
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Everyone here is expressing royalty.
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Hosanna! What does Hosanna mean? Because that's what it says in verse 9.
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It says, And those who went before and those who were following shouted, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
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Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.
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Hosanna in the highest.
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What does Hosanna mean? Hosanna means, Save us, we pray.
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It means, Save us, we pray.
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Many of them believed that Jesus had come to save them from the Roman occupation and religious persecution that they had been experiencing, but that was not the case.
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Jesus' salvation was not a worldly salvation.
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Jesus' salvation was not a political salvation.
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Jesus' salvation was not a socio-economic salvation.
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Jesus' salvation was a spiritual salvation.
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And this is why we see in the story the change.
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This is where I'm sort of headed this morning.
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Everyone there is shouting Hosanna.
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Everyone there is shouting the Hallel, the praise to the king of the Jews.
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They are coronating him as their king.
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They are proclaiming to him, We are taking off our garments and we are setting our garments in front of you.
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And you are walking over them.
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You are the king.
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Hosanna.
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Save us, we pray.
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A week later, well, not even a week, that Friday morning, he would be stripped naked, flogged, nailed, hung and killed at the behest of these same people.
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The voices that shouted Hosanna on Sunday, many of them were the same that shouted crucify him on Friday.
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What's the significance of that? The significance is the reality that it is easy to get caught up in the movement emotionally without getting caught up in Christ spiritually.
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That's how I've always looked at this story.
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And this story has always, it's always really cut my heart to the quick because when I think about church life in America today, when I think about church life in general today, people are really, really willing to get caught up in the emotional part of church.
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People are willing and excited to get caught up in praising Jesus as king.
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They're excited to come into church and shout his name and raise their hands and praise Jesus.
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But by Friday, who's Jesus? I was at a...
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Years ago, Jennifer worked for AT&T and she was a great salesperson and she won two years in a row top 100 salesperson in America.
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And as a result, they sent us on the pinnacle trip, the pinnacle trip of top 100 salespeople and they spared no expense.
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I mean, it was the most money I've ever had stood on me in my life.
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He said with a smile.
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But I'll never forget one moment in the trip.
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We were in Arizona.
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We were at a dude ranch.
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Something I'd always want to do.
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It was fun.
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We got the rope and I didn't get to ride horses because the horses were scared.
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No, it was just...
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It was not part of the deal.
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But Jennifer wanted to introduce me to what at the time I think was either the district manager, general manager or something.
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All the management got to go.
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And there was drinking there and Jennifer and I, neither of us drink, but we were participating in all the other things.
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Got my picture taken with a John Wayne look-alike.
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That was a high point in my life.
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But just all this fun stuff.
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There was a man there.
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He was quite inebriated.
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Means he was drunk.
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And it was the manager, her district manager.
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Jennifer wanted to introduce me to him.
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So we walk over to where he is.
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He is stumbling.
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He's not...
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He doesn't have his wits about him.
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And Jennifer says, Mr.
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So-and-so, this is my husband Keith.
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And he said, Oh, hi, hi Keith.
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How are you doing? So what do you do? I pastor a small church in Jacksonville.
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And he stuck his hand out.
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I've never had such a heavy handshake before because he literally...
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And he looked at me and goes, I want you to know I went to the altar just this last Sunday.
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And what was I thinking? It did you a lot of good, apparently.
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This is an event in my life that painted a picture.
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So many people are willing to go to the altar of the Lord on Sunday and live like the devil all the rest of the week.
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So many people are willing to shout Hosanna and lay down their cloaks and raise the palm branches on Sunday.
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But by Friday, it's like they've never seen the inside of the church.
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Beloved, we need to evaluate ourselves.
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Do we have just an emotional faith? Or do we have a faith that lasts to Friday? That's a real thing that we all need to consider.
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We all need to think about that.
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That our faith is more than just our emotions.
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But it's rooted in a heart's conviction that the Bible is the Word of God.
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That Jesus is the Messiah of God.
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Foretold in the Old Testament.
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Demonstrated in the New Testament.
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And He lives forevermore.
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This is our commitment.
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And it will take us through Friday and beyond.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we are reminded this morning of just how important the commitment to You is.
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That commitment to drive forward.
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To not get caught up with the crowd, but to be convinced in our soul that You are who You claim to be.
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The Lord of glory.
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Father, as we bring our service to a close today, I encourage, Lord God, I ask You to encourage hearts that if there is anyone among us who doesn't know Christ truly and is convicted about the Word of God, I pray that You would open their hearts and convict them.
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Use this time as an opportunity to draw them closer to You.
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I pray that You would take believers and make us closer to You.
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Take unbelievers and convert their heart.
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This is always our prayer.
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But we trust You with the results, Lord.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved, let's stand and sing.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come.