Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Jeff:
Okay, Jeff, just do the best you can. Even if you have to carry Chris through this whole episode, you can do it.

Chris:
Well, you know what? You should have used your indoor voice.

Jeff:
I’m just psyching myself up.

Chris:
Those are things we just think, Jeff. We don’t say.

Jeff:
Oh, was that out loud?

Chris:
Was that my out loud voice? That’s so good. Hey, today, first of all, hello, and thank you for tuning in to The Bible Guys. I’m Chris. This is Jeff. And we are going to do a social media minute. So here’s how it reads. We love our listeners, and it’s been so fun hearing and interacting with them on YouTube. So let’s take a minute and give some shout outs, smiley face, says Desiree. So you want to hit the first one?

Jeff:
Yes, so Ben V says you guys are blowing up great episode as usual you guys are really hitting the big time Thanks again guys. I think he’s talking and he referenced earlier in that when I saw that quote that that thing a few days ago, there’s commercials before and after the YouTube videos. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that’s what he’s talking about. YouTube is blowing us up, man.

Chris:
Well, they’re trying to utilize the viewership, right? By putting their own commercials in there.

Jeff:
And we benefit from it too. I mean, every time you watch a commercial, they send us a nickel or whatever, but yeah, it works out. Yeah. Well, that’s cool. It’s a penny. We make a penny per view. Did you know that? Is that right? Oh yeah. So we’re blown up. You’ll probably get that private jet pretty soon.

Chris:
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, at the end of the month we could buy a Happy Meal. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s great. Okay, number two. What made Lazarus mad? Being raised from the dead. Love the retelling of the comedian’s story. Thanks, Chris. Says Chris S. Hey, that’s hilarious.

Jeff:
You remember that? Yes, I do. Because you were like, Lazarus is in heaven. Remember we were telling that story? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He must have been so mad when Jesus brought him back down to earth. Everybody was like, yay, he came back to life. And Lazarus was like, what the heck?

Chris:
I’m back in this old body, in this place that’s with no air conditioning in the Middle East.

Jeff:
And then Bill F said, good episode guys. I was on the edge of my seat all weekend. I’ve never seen Chris laugh that hard and couldn’t help but join in. That was, remember when we left it as a cliffhanger on Friday about what’s going to happen. And it was, we were telling the Lazarus story. Yeah. And when did I laugh? Yeah. I don’t remember what the laughter was. You laugh all the time. You’re laughing. That’s true. But the, we left it as a cliffhanger of, is he going to rise from the dead or not?

Chris:
What’s Jesus going to do? That’s hilarious.

Jeff:
That was a funny one.

Chris:
Thanks Bill F. I appreciate that very much. So, uh, yeah, I, I do laugh all the time. Yeah.

Jeff:
We laugh a lot together.

Chris:
I laughed yesterday at your comment about your truck. It’s like all the modes of transportation. You’re like, ah, number one, first thing, pick up truck. But you already own, which is hilarious.

Jeff:
I love pickup trucks, man. I should have been more specific. What I want is a GMC 2500. That’s what I want. Oh, I see. Which you don’t have. Which I don’t have. I’ve got a GMC, what is that? 1500? No, it’s the little one. So it’s like the Canyon.

Chris:
It’d be like equivalent to like a Dodge Dakota or something.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Dodge Dakota is not the equivalent to a Denali.

Chris:
Don’t be, don’t be a busted on Dodge, man. I’m all about Ram trucks. Yeah, no, go ahead. So, all right, buddy. So we’re going to be jumping in again. This is a, another, Oh no, it’s only three gospels. It’s Luke, Oh, I see what we’re doing here. We’re reading Luke 19, which is its own story.

Jeff:
Its own story. It’s only three verses, four verses long.

Chris:
Yep. And then we’re doing Matthew, Mark, and Luke on the second story.

Jeff:
That’s correct. So we can jump right into it. Sure. Luke chapter 19 verse 41 says, but as they came closer to Jerusalem, and remember they’re heading down the hill now from Bethany. Yes. He’s riding on the donkey. But as they came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way of peace. But now it’s too late and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long, your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place because you did not accept your opportunity for salvation.” Man, he’s grieving, isn’t he, over the fact that they chose to reject Christ.

Chris:
And by the way, when you walked the road in Israel, that church that was halfway down, they were guessing that that would have been near the spot where he did this.

Jeff:
Okay. Yep. And then in Matthew chapter 21, it says, Jesus entered the temple. So now he’s in Jerusalem. He entered the temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, the scriptures declare my temple will be called a house of prayer, but you’ve turned it into a den of thieves. The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the temple shouting, praise God for the son of David. But the leaders were indignant. They asked Jesus, do you hear what these children are saying? Yes, Jesus replied. Haven’t you ever read the scriptures for they say you have taught children and infants to give you praise? And then he returned to Bethany where he stayed overnight. Mark chapter 11 verse 15 says, When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him, but they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching. That evening, Jesus and his disciples left the city. And then in Luke chapter 19 verse 45, it says, then Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices. He said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be a house of prayer, but you’ve turned it into a den of thieves. And after that, he taught daily in the temple, but the leading priests, the teachers of religious law and the other leaders of the people began planning how to kill him. But they could think of nothing because all the people hung on every word he said. Wow. So there’s a lot of little differences there, isn’t there?

Chris:
Yeah. So when Jesus was declaring, the scriptures say, my temple will be a house of prayer, he’s quoting Isaiah 56.7, which is kind of cool to know. Yeah. And, but you’ve turned into a den of thieves. Do you remember, for those people who may be in church leadership, or other pastors or ministers. Do you remember when Willow Creek Church, Bill Hybels in Addison, Illinois, do you remember when it used to do those leadership summits? And do you remember when Bill Hybels taught this message? It still sticks with me. I don’t remember. He called it righteous indignation. Oh. Yeah, that’s where I just, that term get embedded in my brain, where he was talking about how Jesus in his anger didn’t sin, right? And how it’s possible to not sin while you’re angry, but at the same time, having an anger of wanting God’s will to go forward, to hate sin, to love God’s word in such a way, to where he had this burn or this passion. And he talked about how God gives a lot of us this discontent, you know, where a lot of social justice gets done because of this, right? Because we’re discontent. A lot of the organization that I want to be a part of comes from a lot of this, right? Where it says this righteous indignation that says, for God’s sake, I am burning with anger and discontentment to want to do something about this. And so this righteous indignation is this term that Bill Hybels threw out that just burns in my brain, and I just picture Jesus with this passion and anger flipping over the temples. And think about the protectiveness and the culture that existed in the temple. I mean, people weren’t allowed to do much. If you weren’t a rabbi, if you weren’t a high priest, or if you weren’t a priest working at the temple, to do those things, wouldn’t that be just pretty brass, right? It’d be pretty, pretty bold.

Jeff:
So Passover was a time when you were supposed to bring your sacrifices, right? So people from all around, Jews from all around the Mediterranean, all through the Roman world would come back to Jerusalem, kind of on a pilgrimage, and they would bring their families and it would take weeks or months sometimes to be able to be a part of it. Sometimes it’d be the one time in your life, but the people who lived in Israel, they’d go every year. And so Jerusalem would just swell with huge numbers of people during Passover. But it’s not practical. If you’re coming from Syria, and you’re going to travel for three weeks to get there, or four weeks to get there, it might not be practical to bring your farm animals with you on that journey, right? To travel light, be able to stay in inns and places on the way, and so you wouldn’t bring animals. Instead what you do, and God allows this in the law, sell the animal, for a fair price and then bring that money, the one that you were going to sacrifice, bring it and then exchange it and get, you know, for an animal and then you can sacrifice in Jerusalem. It’s very practical, right? That makes sense to me. But what was happening with these money changes, because some people say, oh my goodness, you should never sell anything in the church because Jesus, you know, and that’s not what’s happening here. What would happen was, and we know this historically, Josephus, others have written about the deceitfulness that was happening. You were not allowed to buy any of the animals without using the temple coin, which meant you had to change your money. You’re carrying a denarius or you’re carrying a Roman drachma or something, and you have to change the money that is commonly used on the street, you have to change it into a temple coin, then you could use temple money. And so what was happening was they were taking advantage, the money changers were taking advantage, you know, really messing with the exchange rates and travelers wouldn’t know and you know how it is when you’re traveling sometimes. I go and want to change in a couple hundred bucks when I’m in, you know, Nepal or something and I have no idea if I’m getting a good deal or not, right? So what was happening, these people are in the temple ripping people off for a required sacrifice. So the animals were sold higher than they normally would be sold. The exchange rate was really sketchy exchange rate. And so this entire system was, these people are taking advantage of people who are innocently coming to worship. And so any practice that interferes with worship is what’s going to make Jesus mad here. Because every time Jesus was in the temple, somebody was selling sheep. Right. Every time Jesus was at the temple, somebody was selling doves. It was this time at Passover when everybody’s getting ripped off because, you know, supply and demand, blah, blah, blah. Right. And they’re just ripping people off.

Chris:
Because it makes sense because people would travel the furthest. Yeah. For this particular.

Jeff:
That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. And so, you know, Jesus was in the temple many other times that didn’t do this, but he does this two times. And both times tend to be around the Passover. And that’s what that was about. So I think it’s interesting because there’s a couple of differences in here, particularly with regard to what the priests want to do, right? So the priests get mad at Jesus and they want to kill him and excuse me, partly because of what he says, but the one in Matthew says they saw his miracles. They saw him healing the blind and the deaf and they’re still indignant about it. And the reason is because the children are shouting out, praise God for the son of David. The son of David means he’s the rightful king. And so again, remember, we’ve talked a lot about how the priests would buy their position and they were more political than they were religious. Right. Right. Especially the Sadducee groups, the high priests and all of them. And so they are worried that if word gets out that even the children are running around singing, this is the heir to the throne of Israel. Right. That man, Jerusalem is going to get wiped out.

Chris:
Yeah. And in the Old Testament, David was the king, right? Solomon was the king. There’s a history of kings. And currently they’re in a season right now where they’re being oppressed by the Romans and their leadership, you know, pretty much was governed by the Romans. So they’re under oppression and they want to get out of oppression. And so it would make a lot of sense for people’s number one desire to say, if this truly is the son of David, it isn’t for salvation, right? At least not spiritual salvation. It’s physical salvation, right? Because we can be restored to our glory.

Jeff:
Yeah. Right. Even back then, people were more obsessed with politics than they were with actually who Jesus is.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
They built their entire religious system around politics and that’s what was going on then. So there’s an interesting phrase that just jumped off the page for me and I realize there’s a note here which is cool. In Luke chapter 19 verse 47 it says after that, remember the others said he went back to Bethany that night. But this one says he keeps coming back to the temple every day over these next several days to teach in the temple. And it says, but the leading priests, the teachers of religious law and the other leaders of the people began planning how to kill him. That’s a phrase I never heard up to this point. Is there ever another time we’ve read and the other leaders of the people?

Chris:
Yeah, that’s a good observation.

Jeff:
I was like, who are these people? This is what happens. And so here’s a note. It says, who are the other leaders? This is the note in the life application study Bible. This group probably included wealthy leaders in politics, commerce, and law. They had several reasons for wanting to get rid of Jesus. He damaged business in the temple by driving the merchants out. In addition, he was preaching against injustice and his teachings were often favored the poor over the rich. Furthermore, his great popularity was in danger of attracting Rome’s attention. and the leaders of Israel wanted as little as possible to do with Rome. So you have multiple groups now. The Pharisees couldn’t do it on their own. The Sadducees couldn’t do it on their own. The priests couldn’t do it on their own. But now all of a sudden they’ve got merchants, they’ve got politicians, they’ve got all these little factions are uniting to come after Jesus. And this is what’s going to tip the scale in the next two or three days. It just popped off the page to me. I don’t even think I’ve ever seen that before. This is what puts the power behind the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the priests. Wow. It’s probably the politicians and the business people. Right? Now this is because those people, they’re not, they’re not trying to figure out how to placate Rome for the sake of their religious practice. They’re not going to be diplomatic. They’re going to go in and pitch a fit going, dude, we’re trying to pay taxes. Some Yahoo that the kids are calling the next king of Israel is walking in flipping over our, our tables and we want him out. Right? And all of a sudden now these guys greasing the skids, doing all those kinds of things would have gotten the attention of Rome and the Roman leaders even greater than the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the priests. Now the priests go through the formalities of it, but it seems like this is the muscle, I think, that gets added, because we’ve heard these problems before. Yeah.

Chris:
Isn’t that neat? That is very interesting. I agree with you in that I don’t think I’ve ever paid any attention to a comment that says, and other leaders of the people. Yeah. Because it seems like such an add-on, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Jeff:
The other ones don’t say it. It’s just that one.

Chris:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, if that is true, then that would mean that, you know, Jesus, obviously knowing everything that’s going to happen, he probably knew walking into the temple and flipping over those tables was a key event.

Jeff:
Just like you knew where the donkey was. Right. Right? All of this is, it’s like it’s an orchestrated thing that Jesus is making sure happens in this way. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. And so, and of course, you know, if you go back at a couple of weeks in the podcast, you know, he talked about going to Jerusalem, but it was like, no, not yet. Not yet. And then, but eventually he was heading toward Jerusalem. And so it even said chapters and chapters ago, he was heading toward Jerusalem. And so he, yeah, everything was in motion a long, long time ago. Jesus knew from the very beginning that this day, the triumphal entry was the beginning of the end. Right.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
Which is, which is amazing. Yep. So, uh, which by the way, uh, uh, when’s the last time you sat down and watched the passion of the Christ?

Jeff:
Oh, probably five or six years ago. It’s been a while. Yeah. It’s a hard movie. It’s a hard movie.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. And so the idea that Jesus would, you know, start his journey. And again, it was on Passover Sunday. And so there was a lot of joy at the beginning. And by the way, they only had joy at the beginning during flashbacks only. Yeah, did you know that? So the director actually said that the reason why he included like, you know, the laying down of the palm branches and things like this is because people needed a break from the heaviness of the movie. So he had to have flashbacks in which it would give people relief. Isn’t that interesting? Because it’s just heavy. It’s just too much, right? And so, yeah, I just think it just reminds me of that, you know, seeing the movie and feeling at the end of the movie what we feel. So you and I would feel that at the end of the movie, Jesus would know it going into this.

Jeff:
Yes. That’s my point. That’s right. That’s my point. The highest of highs. Yes. The lowest of lows. Yeah. It’s crazy. Within a few days. Incredibly difficult. So the one thing that we passed over at Passover is the Luke 19, 41 through 44. And that is, as he’s going down that hill, he pauses. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. He weeps over them. And basically they’ve rejected the king of peace. And then he says, I think this is the declaration at this point, you missed your opportunity.

Chris:
Right? It’s done. It’s over.

Jeff:
It’s done. It’s over. And then he says literally that your enemies are going to come in. They’re going to crush you in the ground and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place because you did not accept your opportunity for salvation.

Chris:
And he’s referring to 70 AD.

Jeff:
Yeah, there’s a moment where you do cross over, where there’s no going back now, right? Now, while you’re alive, you’re still breathing breath. There’s always an opportunity for grace, I believe. But, you know, when there is a moment when death comes and there’s no going back, that seals it, right? And in this situation, he’s prophesying, you know, literally 40 years later. Here’s the note. It says, About 40 years after Jesus said these words, they came true. In AD 66, the Jews revolted against Roman control. Three years later, Titus, the son of the emperor of Vespasian, was sent to crush the rebellion. Roman soldiers attacked Jerusalem and broke through the northern wall, but still couldn’t take the city. Finally, they laid siege to it, which is exactly what he says, they’ll encircle you and close you in from every side. They laid siege to it. And in AD 70 they were able to enter in severely weakened city and burn it. About 600,000 Jews were killed during Titus’s onslaught. Isn’t that amazing?

Chris:
Yeah, and the stones that he’s referring to is obviously the destruction of the city, but he’s also referring to the destruction of the temple, which he also prophesied beforehand as well.

Jeff:
You know, when you’re going down that hill, the most prominent thing right in front of you is the temple mount. And then the temple would have been up on top of that in the glories, where the dome of the rock is now. And you see the big golden dome there. It would have been right there. So when Jesus is pausing and looking, he’s talking about, you’re going to be laid siege completely surrounded and every stone’s going to fall. He’s talking about the stones of the temple are going to be torn down. And they were, it was obliterated. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Well, I, uh, I think that maybe the closing thought here is, uh, you know, that, uh, Jesus, um, you know, he, he, uh, he doesn’t want anything to interfere with his worship. And when we go into the house of God, our motives have to be pure, of wanting to serve God more than anything else. And not have these, what John Orper would call a shadow mission. He calls it a shadow mission. And so it was like, oh yeah, we’re here to worship God, but we’re here to make a bunch of money too. And so, you know, the actual purpose of Passover was to worship. And that’s what Jesus was righteously indignant over, right? Right. Well, that’s a good closing thought, and we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.