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.

Chris:
Good morning to you.

Jeff:
You promised.

Chris:
I did. I said, I would try.

Jeff:
You would try.

Chris:
I’m not sure there’s a promise.

Jeff:
Okay. There’s not a promise.

Chris:
Yes, but good morning. And by the way, I just realized when I started singing, I’d lost my voice last night. So that’s, that was a very bold attempt on my part.

Jeff:
You just nailed it right there. It’s like heaven’s open and angels were singing. No, no, no, no.

Chris:
Just me. It’s just me, Jeff.

Jeff:
Oh, is it? Oh, okay.

Chris:
Hey, today Desiree wants us to do a draft list. So check this out.

Jeff:
A draft.

Chris:
I like drafts. We’re actually talking about Jesus riding into Jerusalem by mode of donkey. Ooh. And so she says, she wants us. Donkey. Donkey! She wants us. Do a draft list of our dream modes of transportation, okay that you wish you can use daily She says this can be anything from dream trucks to jetpacks to a horse. Yeah, so rock-paper-scissors for first place ready, right? Yeah, one two three shoot.

Jeff:
Oh you got me. I got you. You got rock. I did scissors all right So here’s my you always gave me a rock-paper-scissors by the way. I don’t know why because you’re good at it.

Chris:
Oh Okay, here’s my first by far. It’s Star Trek. It’s Transporter.

Jeff:
You want Transporter?

Chris:
I’ve wished ever since I’ve seen Star Trek.

Jeff:
I was going to say mode of transportation, but it’s right in the name.

Chris:
Yes, that’s right. So let me just throw this out there. And that is, I think a lot of our life is spent wasted in transit.

Jeff:
And it’s like, it doesn’t have to be. Because it’s all about the destination for you and not the journey?

Chris:
Well, especially if you’re alone in your car, right? So it’s like, I get it. You can pray while you’re driving, you can listen to podcasts, you can utilize the time, you can listen to music, you can digest and relax, you can make a phone call. You can do things for sure. But it’s never going to equal 100% of utilized time. Because we transit ourselves. It’s just, Star Trek would be ideal, right? Hey, I want to go to Tokyo. I’ll be back in 10 minutes.

Jeff:
Beam me up, Scotty.

Chris:
Yes. Yes. Only only non.

Jeff:
Oh, man. I think you just want to that. I think you won the draft. There’s no more.

Chris:
No, there isn’t.

Jeff:
Okay. There isn’t. I guess maybe. So my favorite mode of transportation is a good pickup truck. It just is.

Chris:
Wow. You’re you’re going for just.

Jeff:
Yep. My favorite. That’s my favorite.

Chris:
Okay. So but you already have a pickup truck.

Jeff:
I know. It’s just we’re just drafting. What’s our favorite? Right? I want another one.

Chris:
So you’re living out right now.

Jeff:
I’m living my dream. That’s right. God’s good to me. I’ve learned to be thankful for the things God gave me.

Chris:
All right. Well, my next one is having the ability to fly.

Jeff:
Well, that was going to be my next one. Okay.

Chris:
All right. So yeah. So outside of Star Trek, I wish I could fly places. That’d be great. Okay.

Jeff:
I love motorcycles and especially like the adventure type motorcycles, you know, the hybrid off-road touring motorcycles, not the big, you know, Harleys and those kind of things, but the other ones. Yeah, I like those. All right, all right.

Chris:
Love it. And just to be clear, you currently do not have one of those.

Jeff:
I do not, no, but I love them.

Chris:
All right. My third one is also fantasy. My, my, my last two are impractical, but they’re real. Okay. So my third one is a flash, uh, having the ability to run places instantaneously to transportation, your own feet. Yeah. Well, because, because again, it’s about the quickness and it’s not a bad thing because people would say, oh, I’d be so tired, but he was never tired. Right. So if you had the ability to do that, you’d have this high metabolism. You’d be able to do whatever you wanted to do. So I would, I would love to be the flash. That’d be great.

Jeff:
Flash as in running. Let’s be really clear on that. You don’t want to be a flasher. Oh my goodness, I didn’t say flasher! Okay, I just wanted to make sure. For me then, I love being on the water. A good boat. Yeah, that’s good. Or a submarine. Can I choose a submarine instead? Sure. Okay. Okay. That’s what I want. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah.

Chris:
So, uh, personal submarine, I’m going to go with private plane. So I don’t mean like, I don’t mean like private jet. I just mean like, it’s fine. Any type of private plane will do right. A little two seater, like even one of those. Right. But somebody saying, Hey, you don’t have to pay or experience spirit. Like I just did spirit airlines, which was my worst experience ever flown a plane.

Jeff:
Have you ever been behind the wheel?

Chris:
Well, I’ve taken the wheel of a plane, right? And so, you know, hey, the wheel is yours. The wheel is mine. I’ve done that for just a very short while. But it freaked me out.

Jeff:
It’s fun. Yeah, it’s fun. I kept flying a little sideways. I kept, yeah, I was having a, the wind was blowing goofy. And so I was kind of leaning into it and I kept turning it a little too sideways, but it’s fun. I love it. Yeah, that’s your fourth one. My fourth one. Oh my goodness. I don’t know. Oh, I know the big safari trucks that we drive in Kenya. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those big toilets. You can do anything. Man alive. They are just beasts. Yeah.

Chris:
And when you’re traveling in some place like Kenya, like literally you’re thinking this is not a road. Yeah. And not only that, but there’s no vehicle made in America that’s going to get over this.

Jeff:
So we literally, in 2012, my driver came to me and said, today’s going to be a rough drive. And we were 15 hours from the city. And we drove through the mountains because it was two hours shorter than to drive around the mountains. But there was no road. We just drove on animal trails and riverbeds. up through the mountains and down the other side of this truck. And I’m like, I got to get one of these. Did you get motion sickness? No, no, I don’t get motion sickness. I envy you. It was crazy. It was nuts.

Chris:
And then the last one is a limo driver always waiting for me. Right. So, right. Yeah. So like, uh, you know, you see these movies where important people, they walk out of the building and the car is just there and they’re so used to it. They don’t even look up there on their phone and they just get right in and then they go and they get dropped off. And then the person’s always waiting for them. And I thought to myself, that’d be nice.

Jeff:
Well, yeah, that’s nice. So my last one, uh, to finish it up is, uh, is a simple one. I want an electric bicycle. Oh, yeah. Like the fat, tired electric bicycles, specifically the Rad Power bikes. I love those. They’re like two grand, so I’m not buying one anytime soon. But I got to ride those out in Huntington Beach and love it. Yeah. It’s just so much torque. They’re amazing. It just goes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.

Chris:
That’s very cool.

Jeff:
All right.

Chris:
Well, there it is. Desiree, there’s our draft list.

Jeff:
OK. I almost chose an X-Wing fighter.

Chris:
Wow. Now see, that would have been a lot better than your current pickup truck.

Jeff:
Honestly.

Chris:
I like it. Your other ones were good, but I gotta be honest.

Jeff:
That was hilarious. I love pickup trucks. It’s hilarious. I need a new one.

Chris:
All right, Jeff, take us away, buddy.

Jeff:
Okay, so today this passage, or this story is in all four Gospels. So this is a rare moment where we get to read it in all four. So there’ll be some repetition, but there’ll also be different details in each one. So let’s just jump right into it. This is Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. This is what we celebrate Palm Sunday. This is the celebration of that.

Chris:
This is a Palm Sunday message.

Jeff:
So Matthew chapter 21 verses 1 through 11, it says, as Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethpage on the Mount of Olive. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. Go into the village over there, he said, and as soon as you enter it, you’ll see a donkey tied there with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks, what are you doing? Just say, the Lord needs them and he’ll immediately let you take them. This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said, tell the people of Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey, riding on a donkey’s colt. The two disciples did as Jesus commanded and they brought the donkey and the colt to him and threw their garments over the colt and he sat on it. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Jesus was in the center of the procession and the people all around him were shouting, praise God for the son of David. Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Praise God in the highest heaven. the entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered. Who is this? They asked. And the crowds replied, it’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. As Jesus says, and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns. Oh, this is Mark chapter 11. I’m sorry. I was just going to say, boy, this sounds like what he just did. Mark chapter 11 verse 1 says, As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. Go into that village over there, he told them, and as soon as you enter it, you’ll see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, what are you doing? Just say, the Lord needs it, and we’ll return it soon. The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street tied outside the front door. As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, what are you doing untying that colt? And they said what Jesus had told them to say and that they were permitted to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it and he sat on it. Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields. Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Praise God in the highest heaven! So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon, and then he returned to Bethany with twelve disciples. Luke chapter 19 verse 28 says, after telling this story, Jesus went on toward Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples. And as he came to the towns of Bethpage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples ahead. Go into that village over there, he told them, and as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, why are you untying that coat? Just say, the Lord needs it. So they went and found the coat, just as Jesus had said. Sure enough, as they were untying it, the owners asked them, Why are you untying that colt?” The disciples simply replied, the Lord needs it. And so they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it for him to ride on. As he rode along, the crowds spread out their garments on the road ahead of him. And when he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that. And he replied, if they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers. And then in John chapter 12, verse 12, it says, the next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. And they shouted, praise God, blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hail to the King of Israel. Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said, don’t be afraid people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming riding on a donkey’s colt. His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy, but after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him. Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others about it. And that was the reason so many went out to meet him because they had heard about this miraculous sign. Then the Pharisees said to each other, there’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him. There you go.

Chris:
Yeah, and you know what, that is a significant story, and yet it seems like on the surface there’s not much happening, but there’s a whole lot happening.

Jeff:
And there’s a lot of different things, and each of the books covers different elements of it.

Chris:
Well, I love the fact that Matthew says that there was a donkey and a donkey’s cult, and he said, bring them to me. and the others just mentioned the cult. So obviously there was two. And by the way, I did a message one time, I think I titled it, back when I was a youth pastor with high school students, I think I said, that one guy, who said, uh, it’s okay or something like that. But anyway, it was, it was, it was about the nameless guy who is the owner of the cult and who, uh, as soon as he hears the phrase, the Lord needs it, he goes, Oh, well, you know what? Okay, go ahead. Right. Like that guy. Like, like, Hey, I’m pretty thankful for that guy.

Jeff:
Right. Right. I mean, it’s not going to work if I go to my neighbor’s house and just hop in his car and start pulling. Oh, don’t worry about it. My wife needs it.

Chris:
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Jeff:
Don’t worry about it, Chris Zarbon needs it. Oh yeah, go ahead, just bring it back.

Chris:
So I’ve often wondered, I don’t know if your brain works like this, but I’ve often wondered like, okay, did God use his magic God powers to make sure that that guy was like in a trance who said, yes, you may have my gold. Yeah, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Or I’d like to think something different. I’d like to think that Jesus knew that there was a man who would respond and who had heard about the Lord, and who had said, well, goodness, if it’s the Lord, then go ahead and take it, right? And that’s why I choose to think about this guy, right? And Jesus knew it, which by the way, just shows his omniscience and it shows his power and all that stuff, right? And so I just think that that’s super cool that that guy is nameless and he’s a part of a huge prophecy. Prophecy for hundreds of years. Think about the paramount importance of us even thinking about this guy, here it is 2,000 years later, and yet he’s just this nameless guy who’s willing to say, okay.

Jeff:
It also could have just been the fact that Jesus was often in Bethany and Bethpage, and he might have known the livery owner, the guy who owned the stocks. Yeah, yeah. And it could have been. But then he would have said, Bill.

Chris:
Jesus needed it. He would have said, go talk to Bill.

Jeff:
Well, unless they don’t know who Bill is, right? Just go get the donkey. And if anybody says anything, tell him I need it. And then the guy goes, oh, well, Jesus needs it. He’s always here.

Chris:
Well, thanks for taking the fun out of that. Because that would be a very practical and feasible explanation.

Jeff:
So it could be any one of those three things. Yes, it could be. So I was just throwing it out there that it could have just been that he knew the guy. Yeah, it could be. But they’re having a party. So it’s taken us a long time to go through all these little events. But John tells us these crowds are gathering because just recently Lazarus has been raised from the dead. Right. Right. Right. So this whole thing of Simon, the former leper, Mary, Martha and Lazarus all having dinner with Jesus, her pouring out, that could have been a day or two after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Right.

Chris:
Well, it would have taken probably a long time for people to hear the news.

Jeff:
Well, Lazarus was like, dude, let’s eat. I haven’t eaten in days.

Chris:
Yeah. Right. Right. Or maybe he was having feasts in heaven.

Jeff:
There you go, yeah, yeah, maybe. So anyways, this is all really close for them. So the word gets out and you can just imagine if somebody raised somebody from the dead in your neighborhood, you go check it out. As soon as word got to you, you go see, right? So these people start gathering and it’s not far from Jerusalem. You’ve been there on the Mount of Olives. It’s what, from the top of the Mount of Olives over to the Eastern Gates, probably only a mile. Yeah, it doesn’t look very far. And you’re looking directly at it, right? So it’s a steep hill down from the Mount of Olives down into Gethsemane, and then back up the hill the other way.

Chris:
And so… Now, when you guys were there, did you walk the road?

Jeff:
Yeah, I walked down the road, down to the… there’s a chapel there about halfway down, and then there’s a church at the bottom in Gethsemane, and we walked through the gardens there. Isn’t that amazing? It’s beautiful, yeah. So they, anyways, it says that they all gather around him and they begin going down the hill. It actually says there. So it’s describing for you, you know, Bethany is on the other side of the Mount of Olives. There’s some little village here that he sent people to, to go get these donkeys. And then I think it’s really interesting because this is a prophecy. You know, it says it’s fulfilling prophecy. It’s Zechariah 9, 9, which says your King is going to ride in. Let me read the prophecy. I have it here. It says, look, your king is coming to you, he is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey, riding on a donkey’s colt. So depending on how you take that, is he riding on the donkey or is he riding on the colt? So it’s really interesting that Matthew includes both, he brought the mother and the colt. Right. Right. Obviously the other three say he comes in with the colt, you know, this young donkey, but Matthew covers both because that’s what the prophecy said, was that it was both. Right. And so Jesus went and got, or had him go get both.

Chris:
And it could have been that maybe he rode both at two different times, or maybe when it said riding on a donkey, maybe it was just the donkey’s colt, but you can call a donkey’s colt a donkey.

Jeff:
Right. Right.

Chris:
Yeah. So it’s like, so it’s like, uh, so think about, uh, the fact that you’re like, well, he’s on a horse. Well, it’s a young horse. You don’t have to say young horse every time. Right. Right. Yeah. So either way, it’s a horse. So it’s the same thing. So, so it could be that, uh, that he was just riding on a donkey, which is why I think the other, uh, interpretations just say he came in riding on the colt. Right. Right. Yep. Uh, but clearly though, there was two animals there.

Jeff:
Yes. Right. So this is Sunday, the week that Jesus would be crucified. One week later, he’s going to rise from the dead. Right? So we are entering now the last four days of Jesus’ life, and then he’s going to die in the tomb and then come back out on the Easter Sunday. So this is the Passover weekend. It’s incredibly important to understand the Passover, which I guess we’ll probably talk about at the Last Supper. But Passover represented the fact that the people were in slavery and that God set them free. And then the Passover meal, which we’ll talk about when we talk about the Lord’s Supper, represented very specific elements, right? But Jesus coming in, one of the elements of the Passover is that the lamb would have his blood shed so that when the death angel came or whatever, I’ll pass over you. When I see the blood, I’ll pass over you. So this is what Jesus is doing. The timing is incredibly important. So you know how for the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading and Jesus is kind of hovering around Jerusalem. He’s in Bethany. He goes down to Jericho. He’s hanging around there. Then he comes back up and he’s back in Bethany again. He’s moving around. He’s not going back into Jerusalem because this was so important that he arrived at the beginning of Passover. So he comes in the gates on Sunday and the people are shouting Hosanna, which means save us now. They’re celebrating him as the king. And this is, you know, he’s got a big fan base at this point and it’s intimidating the Pharisees. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. You know, so for our listeners who may not know, the Passover, you know, the original Passover, you know, the blood on the doorpost and everything else, that’s referring to Moses delivering the children of Israel out of the bondage of slavery. hundreds of years before, right? And we believe that that was a significant event. In fact, a lot of the things that the children of Israel would do in the Old Testament, God would use as a word picture. And this was definitely one of them. And so think about how long this ride into Jerusalem on this very day for the Passover was put into motion. Right. So, I mean, think about the significance of that. So, you know, and the reason why, by the way, that they’re even gathered at the Passover was to celebrate that event with Moses. Yeah. Right. So it’s like it’s like that connection can’t be talked about enough. And yet, you know, if you know of a Jewish person, for instance, who, you know, who is of Jewish faith. They, of course, don’t ascribe that Jesus is the Messiah. And they would still observe Passover, right? And then there’s traditional Passover meals with different traditions happening in the meal. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, but have you ever seen somebody coming from the organization, like an organization called Jews for Jesus? Have you ever seen that?

Jeff:
Yeah, or doing the Seder meals and all of those. Our interns just did one of those meals. Oh, really? Yeah, Bernie took them. He’s our leader of our intern program at Heritage Church. Oh, that’s cool. Did Bernie do the meal with them or for them? Yeah, he got trained on how to do it from some of the rabbis. Wow.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s really cool. And so if you’ve ever seen that, I mean, that’s a person who believes that Jesus came, you know, and is the Messiah. And then he is able to fulfill every aspect of it. So when you see it, it’s really cool.

Jeff:
Yeah. So we’ll unpack more of those elements when we get to the Last Supper, which is coming shortly. But in this one, the big one was Jesus comes in at the most strategic time, at the very beginning of this week-long Passover celebration, and he comes in and he purposely chooses to come in on this donkey, which the people knew then that he’s purposely declaring that he’s the king. Right. And so they celebrate. Woohoo, he’s the king. He just raised a guy from the dead. Clearly he’s the king. Right. Yeah, he’s the king. And they believe he’s invading Jerusalem. Right? We don’t know how this is going to go down, but he’s got the power. He can do it. He’s finally here. Yeah. And a few days later, when he doesn’t deliver on what he wants, these same people turn against him and want him killed. So not everybody who cheers, yay Jesus, is truly a follower, right? And the difference would be, what is their motivation? So we talked about this yesterday with Judas. His motivation was he wanted Jesus to fulfill his dreams rather than allowing his will to align with God’s will. And it’s the same thing here. These people were willing to celebrate Jesus while he was on the verge of giving them what they wanted. But then when they didn’t get what they wanted, they turned against him. And I think that it’s fair for us to check our motives as to why we’re coming to God all the time. Right. And it’s important.

Chris:
Yeah. So I did a message on Palm Sunday. In fact, it’s, it’s, it’s one of my favorite thoughts, but it was like, gosh, I’m not gonna be able to get this right. Cause it’s sort of a tongue twister, but it’s something like, we want the King that we want, not the King that we need, but the King that we need, is the king who is or something like that, right? It’s something like that, where it’s just, it’s a little bit of a tongue twister kind of a thought, but, but it’s, it’s sort of like representative of everything.

Jeff:
Who is, is the king we need probably.

Chris:
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. But, but the king who is, is the king, we need. Yeah, that’s probably it. But it’s exactly what you just said, which is, which is, you know, they were wanting Jesus to do something. And so something for them. And, and by the way, when they, when they threw down their palm branches, right, that’s the reason why we do palms on Sunday. Right. Right. Right. They threw down their palm branches and it says they also threw down their garments on the road. Yeah. They’d be equivalent to like us rolling out of red carpet.

Jeff:
Right. Yeah. Exactly the same. So Jesus taught us to pray your kingdom come. And they are praying or they are shouting, our kingdom is coming. Our kingdom is coming. Right. So if we want to really align with what Jesus is desiring, it’s your kingdom come and your will be done in my life and on earth as it is in heaven. Right. And this is why the people get frustrated is because they thought it was all about them.

Chris:
Yeah. That’s great. Well, hey, that is our time. And so we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.