FBC Daily Devotional – March 3, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Wednesday to you. We've reached the middle of the week and thank the Lord for what he's allowed us to accomplish by his grace in the last couple of days, and I hope that your week is going well thus far.

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Well, today we've read in Matthew chapter 20, but let me ask you this. Let me ask you 20 and 21 actually.

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It's a rhetorical question. Have you ever been disappointed by a political leader?

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Rhetorical question, right? You know how the politics go.

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This guy says, you know, I promise you if I become president I'm going to do thus and so and so forth or governor or whatever, and he has all these this wonderful agenda and you have these expectations that are raised, and so this guy, what he, you know, who he is, what he says and plans to do and so forth, that resonates with you, and so he gets your vote, and he gets not only your vote but the vote of millions of other people, and he gets elected into office, and all of a sudden after he gets elected, it's like his whole agenda is focused on something else other than what you thought he was going to focus on, and you find yourself very disoriented and disenchanted with this elected official, this politician.

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All right, now keep that in mind as we think about the triumphal entry. This is a wonderful, wonderful day when the

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Lord presents himself as the king of Israel. He does so, and to us, a rather unusual way, riding on the back of a donkey and all the rest of this, you know, people throwing their garments and cloaks and palm fronds and all that down before him and waving the fronds and shouting hosanna and so forth.

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We're going to obviously, you know, celebrate what we call Palm Sunday here, you know, very shortly, just a few weeks, and we do that because it was such a momentous event.

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People thronged to see him and they thronged to regal him as the king, the son of David whom

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God has given, hosanna in the highest, and they're so excited that the Lord saves and the king is here.

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There are some expectations that go along with that king's agenda, at least what they think should be the king's agenda, and you can understand this.

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A king is supposed to be one who, in our thinking, rules over a nation, a people on earth, and gives them leadership, and if he's a powerful king, he'll bring deliverance and protection for him and so forth, and this is the notion that the majority of the

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Jewish people had of their Messiah in that first century, that when

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Messiah comes, he's going to sit on David's throne and he's going to deliver us from all oppression, and we're going to be a nation once again, and we're going to be a powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth, they're going to come and they're going to bow down to us and so on and so forth.

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This is kind of their expectation. So when the king is now presented, then it seems like there's an agenda that ought to be pursued that has to do with at least taking steps to rid us of the shackles of Rome.

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That's understandable, but what does Jesus do when he actually arrives in Jerusalem?

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You read in verses 12 and following of chapter 21 that he goes to the temple.

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Well, you would expect that. Messiah has a great respect for God's house,

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God's temple, but what he does next had to raise the eyebrows a little bit of those who just proclaimed him king.

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Instead of doing anything to deal with the

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Roman soldiers and Pontius Pilate and the other Roman officials that are in Jerusalem defiling the holy city, what he does is he goes to the temple and he starts attacking people in the temple.

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He turns over tables and casts people out of the temple and so forth.

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When he does so, he says, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of robbers.

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Well, this had to have shaken some people a little bit.

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Well, I thought he was going to deal with Rome. I thought he was going to get rid of the shackles of Rome.

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Well, you know what? Messiah came to bring deliverance and he came to break shackles.

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What folks needed in the first century is what we need today. We need to be delivered from the shackles of a religion that is based on works and a religion that takes advantage of and uses and abuses people and points our attention to the heavenly father whose house is to be a house of prayer.

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Jesus was right on target with what he, the Messiah, came to do. It's just they didn't perceive it.

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I trust we perceive what Messiah came to do. He came to bring us deliverance spiritually.

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He didn't come to set up a kingdom in the United States and to rule and reign in the

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White House. He came to rule and reign in our hearts and to draw us to our father who art in heaven.

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I trust that Messiah, Jesus, is ruling and reigning on your heart's throne as he certainly will over the world eventually in time, but he has his priorities.

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First things first. Let's not be surprised by what the Lord is doing and I trust we'll trust him in it.

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So our father in heaven, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you that he does rule and reign and thank you for the throne of our hearts upon which he can sit and I trust that we would trust him.

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May we trust him wholeheartedly even though we don't see much in this world that points to a submission to his authority.

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I pray that we would submit to his authority and let us live with the confidence that the day will come when every knee will bow and all nations will serve our

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Lord, our King, our Master. And this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

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All right. Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday, middle of the week. And again, we do have our

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Bible study time and prayer time tonight at seven o 'clock and kids club program going on at 6 45 and young people.

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So that's happening tonight as well. Well, have a good day. God bless you and trust we'll see you tomorrow.