Consider The Donkey (Mark 11:1-10- Jeff Kliewer)

The Triumphal Entry and Christ’s Peaceful Kingship

I say with me, magnify the Lord, magnify the Lord, his name, let us bless the Lord every day and night.

Amazing God that we stand here before and sing praises to his name. Let's continue to exalt his name together by singing a song that talks about all that Jesus is.

Older than the ages, there is a promise of things yet to come. There is one born for our salvation, Jesus. There is a light, there is a king. The chains that bind his name. Friends in the night.

As Jesus told his disciples today, as he led them toward the city gates, an amazing thing happened. The crowd around Jesus became bigger and bigger. Hundreds and thousands of people poured out of the city to welcome him, cheering and shouting.

They called him the son of David. It was a welcome fit for a king. Just outside Jerusalem, there was a wooded hillside called the Mount of Olives. When Jesus reached this place, he sent two of his disciples to get a donkey.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. Many of the people tore palm branches off the nearby trees and waved the palms for Jesus. The people saw Jesus as their king, the one that would deliver them from the Romans.

But Jesus was not that kind of king. He rode a donkey to show the people that he was on a mission of peace. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, it seemed the whole city was shouting, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Even as the people cheered, Jesus knew that they would soon betray him and kill him, and that he would rise from the dead. Today, Jesus is seated on his heavenly throne, ruling and governing his church from heaven.

The way Christ governs his church is through the Holy Spirit that regenerates and sanctifies the heart of those who believe and trust in Christ for personal forgiveness of sin. Join me as we sing, crown him with many crowns.

Prayer from Psalm 127 and Trusting God’s Care

Let's pray, and we'll pray the scripture from Psalm 127 as we open this morning. Father God, your word says to us, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Father, we thank you for this word, and we pray that this morning you would teach us to rest in you.

Teach us to sleep in peace. Teach us to know you as the God who holds the entire world in your hands. Help us to trust your plan. Help us to turn our eyes to Jesus and look full in his wondrous face. Pray, Lord, that you would help me now as I preach, that I would be faithful to your word, and that your word would come forth with power.

I pray for those who hear that their hearts would learn to trust more deeply in you this day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So, when I applied for this job as senior pastor, this role, I filled out the application with kind of an introductory paragraph.

And what I talked about is how I always sleep well at night. Because I have a high view of God and his sovereign plan, I know he has things in control. So even when things get tough and when bad things happen, I usually sleep really well at night because I know that God is still in control.

And I think that's a very important thing for us all to hear, how God is in control. But you know, last week I did not sleep well at night. Especially beginning, kind of middle of the week, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, I would wake up after sleeping for an hour or so and then lay there most of the night just thinking and working out problems and praying and trying to put my mind at ease.

And you guys know how it is when you can't sleep. You think about trying to go to sleep and that makes you not sleep. Anybody have this problem that you lay up at night? Well, this was happening to me on Tuesday night and Wednesday night until Thursday came along.

And I knew I needed to drive home from South Carolina in the morning, a 10-hour drive, so I really needed to get sleep on Thursday night. You understand? But that night, I went to bed late because of an emergency that had happened and it was midnight and I finally drifted to sleep.

When at one o 'clock in the morning, all of a sudden in the hotel room in which I was sleeping, there was a crash so loud it caused me to literally leap out of the bed. I clenched my fist like this, so tight that it hurt for the entire day that followed.

And I ran to the other room because that crash came from within the hotel room. I was expecting to have to throw down, but I didn't have a weapon, so my fist was going to be my firepower. And as I ran into the adjoining room, there was nobody.

Praise God. But a picture was shattered on the floor. What had happened was a picture had fallen off the wall and landed on the faucet of the sink, which was metal, and just completely shattered. Well, after that happened, I laid back down and can you imagine my eyes?

They were saucers just looking at the ceiling. I was shot full with adrenaline. I was unable to even close my eyes, let alone sleep for about two hours. Finally, three o 'clock in the morning, I start to feel drowsy.

And about 3 .30, I think I'm about to fall asleep when all of a sudden, I hear the clanging of a gong. It sounds like Joshua out there crying for war. And I go and I look out the window of the hotel and next to the cracker barrel, there is the recycling truck.

And he has come to unload the recycling bin. So he's lifting this thing and trying to shake loose the cardboard boxes, but evidently they're packed a little too tight because I am not exaggerating. I think he bangs this thing 95 times.

Just, boom, boom. It's just echoing, reverberating through the entire hotel. And I'm just, now my eyes are just complete saucers. I lay back down at 3 .30. By four o 'clock, I'm not tired at all. And I realize maybe it's not just a random thing that the picture fell off the wall and the truck began to empty the recycling bin at 3 .30 in the morning.

Maybe there's a plan in every little thing that happens. At four o 'clock, I stopped trying to sleep. And I said, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. And I didn't get sleepy from four o 'clock to 7 .30.

When we got up and drove, I never slept. But during those three hours of the night when I was listening, I communed with God closer than I have, I think, in years. It was the sweetest time. I read scripture.

I prayed. I met with him. And he spoke to me and he ministered to my heart. And he put my heart at ease. And when I drove home, I didn't even feel tired. There is a doctrine that I want to teach you this morning.

Think of it over against miracles. A miracle is some unusual thing that bends the laws of nature. Walking on water or something that just can't happen in the natural order. The doctrine of providence, unlike miracles, refers to everything that happens.

Providence is God at work in our world, not doing a miracle, but in every picture that falls from the wall. Every recycling truck that shows up at 3 .30 in the morning. Every sparrow that's flying and its days come to an end and it falls from the sky.

Every hair on your head that's numbered. The doctrine is providence. Providence means that God is working a sovereign plan in every little thing that happens. In fact, I'd like to modify the word providence with an adjective that you also need to know, and that is meticulous providence.

Meticulous providence is that doctrine that God is working his sovereign will down to the smallest detail, the littlest thing in your life that happens. God is in control of that too. Meticulous providence is a crucial doctrine for all of us to understand.

It's how we learn to trust in God. I'd like to ask you this morning to turn to Mark chapter 11 verses 1 to 10 for a story about meticulous providence. And this story features an animal. I want this animal to become for you a symbol of meticulous providence.

Maybe you have wrongly associated this animal with a wicked evil political party that slaughters babies in the womb and seeks to change the gender of human beings, which is an impossibility. Groomers, as they have been called.

And that animal, of course, is the donkey. Rather than understanding the donkey as a symbol of evil, in fact, it was God who made donkeys. And just like the rainbow, which is his symbol of patience with a sinful world, according to Genesis, the donkey is a symbol of God's providence, his meticulous providence.

So we're going to read the story, and I want you to think about it in the same way that Jesus told us to think about lilies and birds. He said, consider the lilies of the field. They neither spin nor toil, and yet they're clothed more beautifully than Solomon.

Consider the birds of the air. They don't work, and yet the Father feeds them. And you're worth more than birds. In the same way, consider the donkey. Think about the donkey. He is going to teach us lessons today about meticulous providence.

Let's read it. Mark 11, 1 to 10. And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage 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 will find a colt tied.

A colt, of course, is a baby donkey, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 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.

And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing, untying the donkey, the colt? And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest! The donkey, in this story, knows next to nothing. But, like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, the donkey teaches us to trust that God is always working his sovereign will.

And when you learn that, when you come to trust the will of God, his sovereign plan, meticulous providence, then you become useful and fit for service to the king. So, we're going to talk about today.

Let's take it bit by bit. First, I want you to understand that the donkey knows next to nothing. It's marked by its stupidity. It's a dumb animal. It doesn't speak. It doesn't know. It's just along for the ride in the story.

He has an owner that ties him up. And here comes somebody else, and he goes with them. And then all of a sudden, you've got all these people, hundreds of thousands of people cheering. He doesn't know what's happening.

He's just along for the ride, and yet he is crucial to the story. He knows very little. Lesson. You know only marginally, slightly, fractionally more than a donkey. We only know, if you want to compare us in our knowledge of things, with God and with a donkey.

We are very close to the donkey and very far from God. And yet we're often confused by this. We have this little problem called pride. Especially spiritual pride. There was once a spiritual man who knew things.

He knew that the food offered to idols is nothing but meat. So he's free to eat it. He had this spiritual knowledge. But in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 to 3, Paul actually invites him to reconsider what he knows.

Because knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And while his knowledge was true, the food offered to an idol is nothing, and it's not going to hurt you to eat it. Love would dictate that he not eat that food from the temple in front of others.

Because if he goes outside of the temple to Baal and just eats that food, he could cause his brother to stumble. So if you think you know something, you should check to make sure that you really know what you think you know.

Pride sets in to all of us, and we need to be reminded from the donkey that we know much less than we think we know. 1 Corinthians 8, 2. So turn with me to Numbers 22 for a stark illustration of this story, which I hope you never forget.

Many of you will remember the story from Sunday school. Maybe you never knew the meaning. It is the story of Balaam's donkey. A talking donkey. And the point of it talking is to say, Balaam needed to be taught something about his own spiritual pride.

Let me set up the story. Balaam is a false prophet of a wicked god offering to Baal. And yet God decides to use this false prophet to bless the people of Israel. Now, Balak is a wicked Moabite ruler, and he sees the Israelites down in the valley, and he decides, let me hire the false prophet Balaam to come and curse the people.

Come and curse them. Well, look at verse 6 of Numbers 22. Balak says, come now, curse this people for me, since they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land.

For I know, here's the spiritual pride, what he knows. He thinks he knows. That he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed. Balak has faith in the will of Balaam, the false prophet.

Whoever Balaam curses is going to be cursed. He's seen it happen with this divination, this sorcery. He believes in it. And whoever Balaam blesses is always blessed. So thinks Balak. Now, the interesting part of the story here is that God actually visits Balaam and gives him instructions.

So for a time, Balaam begins to hear from the true God. And the true God tells him, don't go with these people. So he says no. Well, they come back and they press on him. He prays again. This time God says, yes, go with them, but you are only to say what I tell you to say.

Balaam is now hearing from God, and in his spiritual pride, he thinks he gets it. And so he goes determined to say only what God tells him to say. He's doing well. And yet there is pride in his heart.

He thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think because the pressure that's going to come upon Balaam when he gets on top of that mountain would have been more than he could take. He's going to have to say some things that are going to make Balaak want to kill him.

So interesting story. All this to say, let's turn to Numbers 22 verse 21. Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. All is well. Let's hear a lesson from the donkey.

But God's anger was kindled because he went. Now, hold on. God told him to go. So there's a problem here. Why is he in trouble for doing what God told him to do?

Answer.

His heart is still wicked. He's going in his own strength. He's going puffed up in the knowledge that he's going to go speak for God. But he doesn't have the fortitude. He doesn't have the Holy Spirit.

He's not genuinely a regenerate person. Okay, so we go on. Verse 22. And the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey and his two servants were with him.

And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with the drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey to turn her into the road.

Look at that.

Here's Balaam. He's riding on his donkey and all of a sudden it veers off into the field. Circumstances turn for Balaam and all of a sudden, what is his reaction? It is rage. It is anger. He turns and he turns against the problem as he sees it, which is the donkey.

He strikes the donkey, gets it back on the road. Okay, keep going. Verse 24. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards with a wall on either side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall.

Now he's really mad. This donkey just hurt my leg. He's feeling the pain. He's angry. Like me laying in the middle of the night. Who hung that picture on the wall? Why did they just stick it on there?

It's a vibrating wall because of the air conditioner. It's going to fall one day.

Mad, angry.

So what does he do? He struck her again. Verse 26. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam.

And Balaam's anger was kindled. And he struck the donkey with his staff. Kids, listen up. This is where the story gets interesting. If there's any children in the room.

Verse 28.

Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? And now you know he's filled with rage because he just answers right back.

He's like, he's red with rage to the point where he doesn't even like consider. Okay, my donkey just talked to me. He says, because you have made a fool of me. What's causing him such angst? Well, he's going along with the princes of Moab and he can't even just like handle his own donkey.

The donkey steers into the road off the road. The donkey crashes him into the wall. Now it's sitting down. He's making a fool of him. The donkey is making him look bad. His pride is wounded. The princes of Moab think he's a fool.

And so the donkey said to Balaam, well, sorry. Look at verse 29. Balaam said to the donkey, because you've made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand for then I would kill you. It's getting heated here between the donkey and Balaam.

Verse 30. And the donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey? On which you have ridden all your life long to this day. Is it my habit to treat you this way? And he said, no, no. Is it ordinary that in the middle of the night, the picture just falls off the wall?

No, Lord.

Is it ordinary that the recycling truck comes like a clanging symbol in the middle of the night?

No.

Stop and consider the events that happen in your life. Maybe it's not that you're a victim. Maybe God has a plan in every little detail that happens to you. Now his eyes will be open. Look at this. 31.

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam. And he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face. And the angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey these three times?

Behold, I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live.

Balaam thought he knew much. But that donkey just saved his life. How little he knew. We have such a small perspective of the grand scheme of God in the universe. We don't know what he's doing. Nor are we owed that knowledge from the creator of all things.

The starting point to understanding the providence of God is to humble yourself in the knowledge that you have. Or the knowledge that you think you have. The story of Balaam's donkey is a story of humiliation.

Taking a prideful man and humbling him before a holy God. Now later we'll learn from the book of Revelation that Balaam did in fact go and do God's will on the mountaintop. When Balak tried to get him to curse Israel, what did he do?

He blessed them. He tried again on a different mountain. Curse Israel. So Balaam blessed him. A third time. And once again, God speaks through Balaam to bless the people. From Revelation 2 .14 to the church in Pergamum, we learn that Balaam went on to say something else.

He told Balak the weakness of the people of Israel. That rather than trying to kill him, just infiltrate. Go and teach them to worship idols. Go and send your young women to sleep with the young men. Sexual immorality.

And so that's how Balak and the Moabites and many other surrounding peoples actually did conquer Israel in a sense that they were sent into captivity because of their sin. All of this to say, Balaam was a false prophet who led Israel into sin.

But when God wanted to speak through him, he could speak through even him. And the message of the donkey is that the pride of man puffs up. Knowledge puffs up. All of us need to understand whatever we think we know about theology.

Whatever cup of water we've been given is like a drop in the ocean. The ocean of who God is and how big he is and what there is to know of him. And yet what we have is sure. The scripture that teaches us and the knowledge that we do have is sure and real.

We're not postmodern thinking that we know nothing. But what God has spoken, we know. Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. Hear that. But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.

So the first point is a point of humility. The donkey teaches us that we know next to nothing compared to the infinite mind of God. Now the second point is the main one today. That is meticulous providence.

The donkey teaches us to trust God's plan. To trust his plan. Go back with me to Mark chapter 11. And I think this is the main point of Mark 11. This meticulous providence of God. Notice in verse 2. The disciples are told to go into the village in front of you.

And immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt. You will. You will. You will. It does not say you might or I hope. It says you will. From the perspective of God, his plan will happen. This is the point.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the disciple. You were just sent to a city and you're told when you get there, there's going to be a donkey tied at one of the houses right at the beginning of the city.

And you're told what to do. You're supposed to take it and untie it. Well, this is kind of a scary assignment. First of all, what if there's no donkey? How am I supposed to bring back a donkey? What if the owner got sick and decided to go home?

And there's no donkey tied where I was hoping it would be. Or what if I get there and I start untying the donkey and the owner comes running at me with his fist clenched, ready to beat me up or with a sword ready to kill me.

This is a weird assignment. I can't just take his donkey. And yet that's precisely what he was told to do. Now look at verse three. It says, if anyone says to you, if, if, if. From our perspective, there are counterfactuals in life.

If you do this, then that will happen. If you go to get this donkey and you start to untie it, somebody might ask you what you're doing. Or it's possible that nobody will see it and you'll just walk off without it.

From our perspective, there are ifs in life. There are choices that we make. And if you do this thing, that will happen. If you do another thing, something else will happen. These are real choices that we make.

But ask yourself this question. From God's perspective, was it possible that there wouldn't have been a donkey tied there? I'm stroking my beard here. Theological thinking here. Philosophical. Is it possible that nobody would have come out and asked this question?

Of course, we know the answer is this was ordained by God. So look what happens in verse four. They went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, what are you doing?

Untying the colt? And they told them what Jesus had said.

They let them go.

I'm here to tell you that in the meticulous providence of God, that was destined to happen. In fact, in Zechariah chapter nine, verse nine, a prophet more than 400 years ahead of time said that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem, not on a white steed, but on a donkey.

It was prophesied and because of this, it was certain to happen. Because God's word never returns void. Zechariah 9, 9 and 10. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you. This is the triumphal entry. Righteous and having salvation is he. Humble and mounted on a donkey. On a colt. It has to be a young male donkey, just a year or so old.

No one had ever sat on this donkey because the prophet said on a colt, the full of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. This is not a conquering king. The war horse is not at play here, but rather a donkey.

The battle bow shall be cut off and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. The prophet foresaw Jesus in his triumphal entry riding on a young donkey.

And it was destined that this donkey would be there. I want to teach you how the theologians spoke of meticulous providence. The Presbyterians in 1646 wrote it this way in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

They said, God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. That's a strong statement. Every picture that falls from the wall, every bird that falls from the sky, every hair that falls from your head was ordained just as it happened.

And you say, wait a minute, I don't like that because philosophically in my mind, I have trouble with that idea. It feels like you're making me a puppet, like a marionette doll that God just bounces around.

What about my real choices? Can't I change things? Don't you wish the Westminster divines, as they're called, could have answered that question for us? Well, they went on to say, yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin.

God is not the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures. There is creaturely will. The man who tied up his donkey was doing that because he wanted to go inside the saloon and have a drink.

He was walking along and he tied up his donkey. He's making real choices. And the disciples make a real choice to obey. And they go and they find a donkey. And they're not puppets. They're making real creaturely choices in this world.

They also said, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. In other words, under this divine decree, the secret will of God, within this world in which we live, there are secondary causes.

If I choose to start running the aisles today like a Pentecostal, I could choose to do that.

Right now.

And you guys would just be, your eyes would be as wide as me when that picture crashed. What is he doing? And then run right out the door. Nobody would be here again next week, would you? I hope not. I could make that choice right now and do it.

I have a real choice to do that or not. And yet it is ordained that I will stand here and preach God's word. These two things are compatible. The will of man in real choices and the sovereign will of God over all things.

Pastor John, our associate pastor, he calls himself a Cal-Arminian, Calvinist-Arminian. Both and. He sees the sovereignty of God, but also there is a real creaturely will. I don't call myself that. I think that's highly confusing.

But I call myself a compatibilist, as they did here. These ideas are compatible. They are not fighting each other. Spurgeon said it's like railroad tracks that run parallel. And we don't understand how they ever merge together.

But somewhere far off in the distance, somewhere in heaven, those two tracks merge. They're together in heaven. God understands how they fit. Now, somebody over here will say, well, you just read a Presbyterian statement of faith.

I'm not a Presbyterian. I'm a Baptist. I'm more of a Baptist, right? My parents are members at Idyllwild Baptist Church, Southern Baptist Church in Tampa. Did you know that in 1689, here's how the Baptists wrote it?

God has decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass. Same language as the Presbyterians. Yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor has fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor is liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.

Big theology here saying the same thing. In fact, sounds like plagiarism to me. Pretty much stole the language. So this is what the theologian says, but I want Bible. Don't tell me what the scholars say.

I want the Bible.

What does the Bible say? Proverbs 16, 33, the casting of the lot into the lap. It's every decision is from the Lord. The most seemingly random thing that could be imagined. In fact, it's definitionally random.

When you want to do a random choice, let's cast lots. Let's roll the dice. That's how Matthias was chosen in Acts chapter one. It's seemingly random, but it could have been that the other was taken to be the 12th apostle.

No, it's every decision is from the Lord. What's random to us is not random to him. Meticulous providence in this world. Proverbs 16, 33, Ephesians 1, 11. God works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Now that's in the context of predestination to life, but it doesn't only refer to the predestination of people. It refers to all things. All means all. Remember Nebuchadnezzar? In his spiritual pride, he thought he built Babylon, but God wanted to humble Nebuchadnezzar.

And so he turned him into a donkey in a sense. He made him go out in the field and eat grass. Was it seven years? I think seven years. Finally, after that humiliation, Nebuchadnezzar was given back his right mind.

And in that moment of clarity, he speaks these words from Daniel 4, 34 and 35. At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar. Isn't it cool that we have words from Nebuchadnezzar through God? Lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever.

For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And hear this. He does according to his will.

Among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And he goes on to say, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? Nebuchadnezzar got it. There's a God in heaven with a sovereign will that no one can thwart.

You can't trick him. You can't undo his plan, even with your sin. You say, wait a minute. God's not the author of sin.

Right.

Sinners are the author of sin and they're responsible for it. Pilate was responsible for sending Jesus to the cross in his creaturely will, his own sinful desire. He wanted to preserve his place in Rome.

He didn't want Rome coming down on him. He just wanted peace, washed his hands of it. Herod wanted to be the king over Israel. And here's this contender. And Herod, in his pride, mocked the true king, put a crown of thorns on his head, put a purple robe on him, struck him and mocked his claim to be king.

The Jews rejected their own Messiah. They wanted a conquering king, a Messiah who would deliver them from Rome. Instead, he came humbly. And so they shouted, crucify, crucify. That's their sinful will.

The Gentiles, the Romans, they're operating by their own will. Right. What are the soldiers doing? Whatever they're told. They want to get paid. And so people operating in their own will. Are sinning.

And yet, Acts 4, 27 and 28. Acts chapter 4, verse 27 and 28. Mentions those four groups and how each of them did what they wanted to do. And then in the 28th verse says they did what his hand and plan predestined to occur.

You see the both hand? God has a sovereign will, meticulous providence over everything that happens, including the most sinful, evil thing that was ever done in the history of the world. The perfect, pure lamb of God.

Delivered up by sinners. Acts 2, 23. According to the definite plan of Almighty God. It's both hand. This is the lesson of the donkey. We need to trust his sovereign plan. When you lay up at night. Worrying, anxious.