Law & Grace - Matthew 21:1-27 Score: Donkeys 5, Palms 1

Good morning. As we venture into the passage that Randy just read the introduction for here, I'm going to let you know this passage has six parts, so you can count them. Probably most of us can't count them on one hand, but it does have six parts. The first 11 verses, Randy read for us here, is often called the Triumphal Entry. It's what we will be also calling, typically, Palm Sunday.

That'll be just a couple weeks from now. And we'll, of course, go into more detail on that. The next verse is 12 through 17. Jesus cleanses the temple. And as we'll see, this is actually not the first time that he does so. The next, verses 18-22, Jesus makes a fig tree wither because it is barren. And, the next part here, verses 23-27, Jesus' authority is challenged by the, essentially the leaders, probably representatives of, but perhaps not all, of the Sanhedrin. And we'll talk about what that means. verses 28-32 Jesus gives a parable of two sons in the context of a vineyard owner with two sons and he's giving this parable and we're going to discover for a different reason and a different purpose than he has previously given parables. In the last part 33-46 he tells another story of a parable of a landowner and a vineyard and then addresses these soon-to-be very unhappy leaders of Israel.

With that, we'll go into some of the parts here. The four Gospels gives us a particularly good perspective here. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are like four-channel stereo vision as we go to read the account. We get a most extraordinary depth of vision and understanding and insight from looking at these different accounts from the four Gospels. Not all of the things that are in the four Gospels are common to each. In some cases there are accounts that are uniquely in one or maybe a couple of the Gospels, typically Matthew, Mark, and Luke having the most in common.

In this particular case, what's called the Triumphal Entry, or Palm Sunday, and the part that follows, essentially all of the Gospels have something to add to the account, a unique insight of one kind or another. Matthew, that we have been going through here, now in the 21st chapter, was written from a Jewish perspective, written to the Jews, and particularly focusing on Jewish terminology, and a focus on Christ as the King, and centering on dealing with the issues of the Kingdom. Mark was written to a more Roman mindset, and one of the reasons why Mark is more brief and instant, he will far more often than the other Gospels write immediately, immediately, immediately. And the reason? The Romans want to get things done. Okay? That's the mindset there. Luke is representing more of a Greek perspective. And in fact, Luke himself had more of a Greek language and cultural background. And John is written to a perspective of essentially addressing all of those, providing additionally other insights.

So anyway, the four Gospels are helpful here. We're going to kind of keep our mainstream going through Matthew, though. Today's supplement is a harmonization of all four Gospels. What we did is take all the Gospels, put together in sequence, what are the things that shed light on this event called the triumphal entry, or Palm Sunday.

And so you're free to take advantage of that. First, we have our sponsoring donkey, who is going to take us through a brief tour of Passion Week. Passion Week is typically the week before Christ's crucifixion, and including crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. So now with our sponsoring donkey, you have this, and you have somewhat of an outline of this, not in quite the same detail in your handout. So this is the traditional chronology. Others have gone and suggested some variations. In my examining it, I think the traditional chronology is likely the correct one.

The first, and we'll be looking at this on April 1st, and I'm not kidding. I'm not fooling. We'll be looking at Zacchaeus and Jericho. That took place on the Friday before Christ was crucified. And we will be looking at that on April 1st, Palm Sunday, two weeks from now. Now, I want you to pretend that you're a flying donkey. Don't work too hard at it. It could be scary. Okay.

If you look over down on Jerusalem and then look off in the distance, you'll see Jerusalem there in the foreground and then the Dead Sea off in the distance there. That's the perspective. We're looking at Jerusalem towards the east. So that's our perspective.

The Temple Mount is located here. It is now, and we'll see why the change, it is now covered with the Dome of the Rock built within a short time after the establishment of Islam as a prominent religion established by the sword on all three continents in the Middle East. And then there is the Mount of Olives across from The Temple Mount. The Mount of Olives was the place where Jesus ascended and would do so some weeks later. It is also the place where Jesus will return.

Zechariah 14.4. He will return at that same place. Oh, by the way, that's why the Jews all want their bodies buried on the Mount of Olives. When the Messiah comes again, Wait a minute, they don't believe again. Anyway, when the Messiah comes, they want to be there when the Messiah resurrects all the bodies. So anyway, that's why that's a prestige piece of real estate so far as getting buried for the Jews.

Bethany is off in the background here and that's the place essentially where Jesus stays at night. That's also the place where Lazarus was raised. And then right between there is Bethphage, where as Randy read for us, this little donkey is borrowed from in this little village of Bethphage in between.

Jesus and the 12 disciples have been traveling up from Jerusalem. Remember last week he said, I'm going to go, we're going to go up to Jerusalem and there I'll be crucified and buried and raised again. You've been traveling up to Jerusalem from Jericho, as was the custom of many thousands of Jews. If you came from an area to the north, like around Galilee, you would bypass Samaria and then go down the Jordan River Valley. And then from there, there was a very steep incline up. So it went like this. Here's Jericho near the level of the Dead Sea and below sea level.

And you're going up to Jerusalem from there. a steep climb. Here's the way it works, is that although it's only 12 miles directly, with all the windy twisty, it's almost twice that far in actual distance when you're walking or crawling or whatever you're doing. And so it's that much of a climb, 23 miles, 3,000 foot climb in that distance. So you're going up, up, up, up, up, up, right? So you'd far rather ride a donkey up that kind of an incline than carry one.

So now, back to our donkey. Here's Lazarus. It's Saturday before crucifixion week. Saturday is when Jesus raises Lazarus. Now, an important distinction. Back to this kind of life. He wasn't resurrected as Christ was with a new body. He was resurrected back to this life. I can't imagine. Here's poor Lazarus. Oh no, I'm dying again? You know? Anyway, that's The scenario.

Okay, so here's Bethany and he goes from Bethany over there in the triumphal entry. He goes from Bethany, goes and picks up the donkey at Bethphage and then he's still on the back side of the Mount of Olives there. So then the triumphal entry and the entry into the temple in Jerusalem would take place there on that Sunday.

They don't call it Sunday, Monday, because those are all pagan names, actually, that we use. They call it the first day of the week, the second day of the week, things of that sort. I guess math was OK. But first, second, third, that's fine. But Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, that's not. OK. But we'll be taking a look at that particular event. Then.

On Monday, Jesus drove out the money changers and the animals and everything that was in the temple courtyard there. We'll be taking a look at that as well. And the rest of the events that took place after he did that when he talked to the Jewish leaders. Tuesday is what's called the Olivet Discourse. That's Matthew chapters 24 and 25. We'll be taking a look at that here in the weeks in front of us here. Wednesday Jesus went into the temple there in Jerusalem and on Thursday was the day of the Last Supper. It was the day of the Last Supper. Essentially what it was, was Passover with a handoff to the Lord's table. That's what it was.

That night then was the Garden of Gethsemane event. and then Friday crucified about 9 a.m. We'll be taking a look at this on Good Friday. Jesus was crucified about 9 a.m. and he was dead by 3. By the way, that was fast for the typical crucifixion. Crucifixion and then burial. They had to get him buried because they also had preparations for the next day, which was Passover.

We'll be taking a look at that crucifixion, particularly from 9am to 3pm on the Good Friday service on April 6th. And then, Saturday in the grave, and one other thing to point out, What happened is early in church history, they came up with this horrifically complicated formula for how you figure out what day Easter is. And that's one reason we have Easter bouncing around between sometime in March into sometime in late April. And to me, it's just crazy. But nonetheless, that's what they did.

And instead of having, you know, here's should be Good Friday should be up against Passover, right? That makes sense. That's not what they did. But this year, we've got an exception. This year, we've got Good Friday, and then the next day is Passover. And that's the way it should be.

At any rate, just an interesting occurrence this year where Passover is exactly the day after the day we celebrate Good Friday. So it'll be a Passover Sabbath this year. Next, Jesus was resurrected early Sunday morning, as we say it, the first day of the week. We'll be celebrating that on April 8th. And so, that's the week.

Now, this is often called the triumphal entry. I've titled these slides, two of them, the not-so-triumphal entry. And we'll talk about why in a minute here. The events in Matthew 21, 1-11 that Randy read for us here are traditionally known as the Triumphal Entry. Palm Sunday is another term for it. There are some biblical reasons not to look at this event in quite the traditional way.

And so let's go over them. As we've seen, in five days, the Jewish leaders will have successfully gotten Jesus crucified. So here he is having this triumphal entry, and in less than a week they're going to have him up on a cross. And they'll be having the crowd yelling, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Right?

That doesn't sound terribly triumphal. The only one present at the crucifixion that seems to have any understanding of what went on, and this is really a mind-boggling concept, is the centurion in charge of the crucifixion. We're going to find that out on the Good Friday service. The centurion said truly this man was innocent and the centurion said truly this was the Son of God. Everybody else is scared to death or mocking him or something else.

The Jews had a tradition of saying what they call the Hallel. It just means praise. You've probably heard the term hallelujah, praise God, right? So the Hallel, as they came to Jerusalem, and Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest, those are all either a part of that passage or very close to what's in that passage there. So the Jews would also sing from what's called the Psalms of Ascent. That is, as they go up the steep incline from Jericho to Jerusalem, Psalms 120 to 134, a number of those Psalms were written about or by David the king. Halal means praise and Hosanna, which is the other thing that you see in here, means save us.

And that's a shortening of Psalm 118.25.

You'll find Hosanna is only a New Testament term, but it's because it's sort of a shorthand version of what's in Psalm 118.25, the first half of that verse.

Now, here's Bethphage, where Jesus gets on the donkey that's being borrowed, and by the way, In Jerusalem when they would have these, and in the surrounding area when they would have these feasts, it was considered required hospitality to accommodate all sorts of guests. The population during these feasts of Jerusalem and the surrounding towns would swell to multiple what they would be ordinarily.

So here's the picture. Starting at Bethphage with the donkey Jesus would follow this tree line that you see there You see that let me back through it. So you'd see it So here's this tree line that that trail is an ancient one and it's very likely the the trail that you see now and it has some trees along it is very likely the the path that came into Jerusalem from Bethphage in the time of Christ Right here, Jesus would kind of crest the top of the Mount of Olives and begin to get a view of Jerusalem. And this is important. This path that you see right in front of you in this picture here is very likely the ancient path that Jesus was on.

That's still remaining on kind of rock-lined walls along the side. See up at the top, the walls of the city of Jerusalem. And you see right up here, There's a closer shot. This is the Eastern Gate, or sometimes called the Golden Gate. And you'll notice that it's all bricked up, and it has a bunch of graves in front of it. That's because in the 15th century, the Muslim ruler there heard that the Jewish Messiah was going to come through that gate, and he didn't want that to happen.

So he had it bricked up, and he had a bunch of Muslim graves put in the front of it. as if that's going to stop Jesus right okay so in very interestingly Ezekiel wrote about this in Ezekiel 43.4 it says and the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate facing toward the east very interesting so here in this perspective Jesus is coming over the top of the Mount of Olives and seeing Jerusalem come into view. What's his response? Everybody is putting down palm branches and putting down their coats and singing the Hallel and even making statements about He's the Messiah. What's Jesus' response? You have this on There's a slide on page one in your handout.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, Luke 19, 41 through 44. When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it. By the way, the two places where Jesus wept are this day and the day before. When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, if you had known to this day, even you the things which make for peace but now they have been hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hand you in on every side and they will level you to the ground and your children within you and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation." So Jesus wept. He's saying these not with words of excitement, but with tears.

Forty years after that would be the siege of Jerusalem. Twelve legions of Roman soldiers would come from as far away as Britain to absolutely crush the Jewish rebellion. This is an artist rendering of what that attack might have looked like. It was the end of life for about 1,100,000 Jews. Many of those deaths were Jews killing Jews. If you refused to fight, you were killed. It was the enslavement of 97,000 Jews, some of them forced to be gladiators, where you put your life out on the line in the middle of an amphitheater or a coliseum. It was the total destruction of the temple. And here's where it happened.

The Romans took the temple, and just as Jesus said, not one stone was left upon another. They shoved it off the edge, and when archaeologists went and found it, they cleaned up a lot of the mess, but left some of the rubble so people could see what the Romans had done. That's where the temple went. Off the edge. By the way, there was no gold in here. The gold they'd gotten. So just as Jesus said, the Roman soldiers did not leave one stone or another, but dumped them all off the temple mount right here. Here's another close-up of the same pile of rubble. Huge stones all shoved off the edge.

It was the end of the court of Shammai. One of the things we've said in recent weeks is there were two courts that you could choose, the court of Hillel and the court of Shammai. It was the end of the court of Shammai. It never existed again after this. It was the end of the Sadducees. No more Sadducees after this. Why? Sadducees hung around the temple. Where are you going to hang around when there is no temple to hang around at, right? End of the Sadducees. It was the end of another more reclusive group called the Essenes. Essentially that or shortly thereafter.

It was also the end of the line of Esau. Isn't it very interesting that here in the book of Genesis you have Jacob and Esau born at nearly the same time, Esau first. Of the line of Jacob we have millions minority, but millions of Jews. But here, almost 2,000 years ago, the line of Esau died out. The reason that they died out is the descendants of Esau came into Jerusalem to help fight the Romans. And they died. So far as we have any record, all of them. The end of the line of Esau.

So, as Jesus continues this not-so-triumphal entry The Hallel is from Psalms 113 to Psalm 118. So as Jesus was coming into the city, the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke his disciples. Stop them! For singing the Hallel in such a way as to glorify him. They're giving you all this attention and they're acting like you're the big descendant of David. Rebuke them. No. Now, if they were quiet, the stones would cry out, right?

Jesus comes in and cleanses the temple. As we mentioned, this is not the first time. So far as we know, it is the last time. Comparing all the four Gospels, the event of Jesus cleansing the temple would take place the next day, which we call Monday, the second day of the week. This is actually at least the second time he did this. We have another time recorded early in the Gospel of John. You have this slide. I won't read through it all but it's from John 2 13 through 20 and Jesus is calling out take these things away.

Stop making my father's house a place of business the courtyard Around the temple was about the size of six football fields. Okay soccer fields if that relates better to you but about six of those And what they had done is to bring in all these animals around the temple courtyard.

And they brought in animals for small sacrifices, birds and cages. They brought in larger animals. And matter of fact, what they did was they went into all the surrounding countryside and bought up all the animals so nobody else could buy anymore. And if you wanted to buy the animals, you had to go get them in the temple.

Courtyard from the guys who had bought up the whole neighborhood and so you're forced to buy from them unless you brought your animal from some distance away and Then you couldn't buy the animals with that filthy pagan money You had to have special Jewish money and so then they would charge a fee for making the transaction So they'd make money twice right Jesus said enough of that get them out of here and And he made a cord of whips and just whack! He drove the animals out. Can you imagine these guys? Ah! Which one's mine? That's mine!

And he says, no problem. He dumps the money tables over. You figure out who owns what. You guys shouldn't even be in here. Of course, they're just delighted with this behavior, right? Yeah. Jesus may have actually struck the men doing their business, but we know he did overturn the money changers tables, let loose all the animals being sold as sacrifices. You can imagine, it looks like a cattle drive coming out the front gate, you know?

And sheep and bulls and oxen, just all kinds of animals, crazy. But out they went. As Jesus comes out after that, At first when we read this, he makes the fig tree barren and basically withered. It was actually a tree that wasn't bearing fruit, but it basically withers the whole tree. So we might think that for Jesus to make the tree barren is rather odd and perhaps even a bad thing to do.

You might see that. But several of the prophets wrote about a withered fig tree, both literally and symbolically, of Israel's rebellion against God. So this was in line with what the prophets had already written. Jeremiah 8, 4 and 13, and I point out we have other references there, sometimes whole chapters in Joel 1 and Amos 4, This is the way the Jeremiah 8, 4, and 13 passages read here. And by the way, it does include 5 as well.

You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord, Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not repent? Why then has this people Jerusalem turned away in continual apostasy? Not just occasional, continual apostasy. They hold fast to deceit. They refuse to return.

I will surely snatch them away, declares the Lord. There will be no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig trees and the leaf will wither. So this is a very literal description of what Jesus does. So this is something that had been written some time ago and would definitely get the disciples' attention. The law of Moses, by the way, did not allow a fruit-bearing tree to be cut down, but one that was definitely not bearing fruit, that could be cut down. So this was a picture of judgment and coming judgment, just like Jesus had pronounced was going to happen to the country and the temple.

Jesus caused the fig tree to wither all at once, just boom, right in front of them. which is a picture of Israel's spiritual withering as well and the coming judgment against Israel. It was going to be bad. You see this 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem was not the end. The Jews continued to rebel until finally things ended there at Masada in 73.

But what Jesus did with the fig tree was also a faith illustration for the disciples. The basis of faith Whatever his own disciples would ask, they would receive. Now, this should be looked upon as directed to the apostles who would do miracles. It's not necessarily a universal, it's not intended as a universal guarantee that anything that any believer asks will certainly be done. But we have an illustration.

Here is Peter. not too long after this event, who walks into the temple, and there was a lame man. By the way, that lame man had probably been there when Jesus was there, but Jesus didn't heal him. Hmm. I wonder why. Leaving something for Peter to do? Anyway. So here's Peter, and by the way, Peter's going to point to the reference. That's Acts 3, 1-10. Right? Okay.

Here's Peter. who is coming up to this lame man, and he doesn't come up and say, you know, I'll pray for you and we'll see if the Lord will heal you. Does he do that? No. He comes up and he says, I don't have any gold or silver, that's what you're looking for, but what I do have I'll give you, and he speaks with certainty, absolute certainty, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. He didn't come up saying, well, let's see what the Lord will answer prayer, and we'll see what God's will is.

No. He said it, and boom, it happened right then, right there. Well, after the cleansing of the temple, the leaders there in Jerusalem, known as the Sanhedrin, They come by asking Jesus, what's the authority for your doing this? What's the basis of authority that you come in and clean out the whole temple? Then we've authorized these guys to have money changers there and to have all the animals and all that. Interesting that they don't do anything more than ask a few questions. It's like they should have known better, right?

Now this Sanhedrin consisted of a majority of Pharisees and a minority of Sadducees, and the pattern went like this. The Sadducees were smaller in number, but in order to balance things out, the Sadducees would have one who was appointed as a chief or high priest. So the Sadducees had the high priests, and they had that role because they were in a minority that offered some balance for the fact that there were a lot more Pharisees in this group.

Now, one of the things you'll find in the Bible is chief priests. And you might say, well, I thought they just had one chief priest at a time. Which is true, they did. But they would take turns. And so you'd have a chief priest, and a former chief priest, and another former chief priest. So you'd end up having chief priests, and you'll find that term in the Bible, because of the fact that they would have sequences like that. Just like we will at times call a former president or governor by that title, even though they don't officially hold that role anymore. So that would be the case there, and that would be the ones who would come up and challenge Jesus.

Jesus said, I'll tell you what, I'll answer your question if you'll answer mine. Jesus said that he would answer their question if they'd just answer his. Did the baptism of John the Baptist come from heaven or from men? You tell me. Uh-oh. In fear of the people, they wouldn't answer. They said, man, if we give an answer one way or the other, people would get upset. Everybody has an opinion about John the Baptist. And we don't want to get in trouble here.

So, Jesus comes back with a pair of parables. Now, you know what a pair of parables is, right? So, here's a pair of parables, right? So, he's going to tell them a pair of parables, right? Here's a pair of parables. So, why a pair of parables like this?

Why? Because in the past, Jesus told parables to the disciples so that the others did not understand. So the disciples would understand, and he would explain the meaning of the parable, in some cases, to the disciples. Because he wanted the disciples to understand the meaning of the parable, but he didn't want the others to understand. What is he doing telling parables to the guys he doesn't want to understand parables?

Reason. He wants them to make a judgment, a moral and ethical judgment, a spiritual judgment against themselves. Because what he will do is tell a parable that allows them to say, well, that person was wrong and this person was right, and then to say, that's you. So that's why.

So Jesus begins telling a parable, and I kind of paraphrase it, I'll say this so that you guys will understand this time, because that's exactly what I want you to do. since the Jewish leaders didn't have an answer for them, Jesus didn't answer them, but he did have some things to say to them in these paraparables.

He told them about a vineyard owner who had two sons. One son did not respond favorably to the father's request to work in the vineyard, but after he responded unfavorably, he went and worked anyway. That was one son, the first one. The second son did tell his father that he would work, although he said he'd work, he didn't work. So Jesus puts that parable out there. Which of the two did the will of his father? When Jesus asked the Jewish leaders who did the will of his father, they all replied, the first.

So they've made a judgment here. He says, okay, now let me tell you, you guys just shot yourself. Jesus said to them, and boy, I tell you, they must have loved to hear this, the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. Which delighted them to no end. I'm sure they threw a party at that.

So, why would Jesus be so bold and direct? Why would he be so bold and direct? These guys are the most powerful Jews in all of Israel. Why would he be so bold and direct? He needed to be crucified. As a matter of fact, he was volunteering to be crucified. He was also telling them the truth.

Jesus said that when John the Baptist brought his message to Israel, the tax collectors and prostitutes believed John, but the Jewish leadership did not believe him, nor do they even now. And so the one son who was reluctant, but went ahead and did the work, was better off than the one that said, yeah, I'll go, but didn't. The ones who said, yeah, I'll go, but didn't do what they were supposed to, that's the Jewish leaders, right? That's the Jewish leaders. Here's the next parable. And I couldn't think of anything better than to just simply read this part. Listen to another parable. I'm sure they were real eager to get another one after that one.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his produce. Get his part in it, right?

The vine growers took his slaves and beat one and killed another and stoned a third. I guess the stoning probably killed them too. Anyway, again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. Verse 37, but afterward he sent his son, his own son, to them, saying, They will respect my son. But when the vine growers saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. They took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. And therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? These guys don't know what's about to hit them, do they?

So here's what they said. They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. See, they've rendered judgment already. He says, guess what? You are the wretches. You are the wretches.

Jesus told these same Jewish leaders this parable about the vineyard owner. This parable pointed the Jewish leaders as the ones who killed the slaves and the son. You guys just hung yourselves. By this parable he pointed to the Jewish leaders' treatment of the prophets as they had in the past, frankly for centuries.

Isaiah writes this wonderful book, 66 chapters, phenomenal piece of literature, spectacular, a masterpiece. Isaiah writes this masterpiece book, and what did they do? They sawed him in half. Other prophets were killed and stoned. Jeremiah dropped down into a mud hole. In telling about the Son, told them that they would be killing the Son, capital S-O-N, Jesus himself.

He says, guys, it's only going to be in a few days. I'm going to be meeting you across the courtyard. And you'll be slapping me and recommending me for crucifixion. And that's exactly what I want. As a matter of fact, I'll even joyfully go there for the joy set before Him endured the cross.

Jesus said to them, did you never read the scriptures? And by the way, he asked that several times. What we have is a footnote at the bottom. Jesus was stressing that the scriptures pointed to him. He started this pattern in chapter 12, verses 3 and 5, and on into the next chapter here. When Jesus asked, did you never read the scriptures, each time he stressed that the scripture was pointing to him. But you guys haven't read that, have you? Right?

The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and is it marvelous in our eyes? And it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. Jesus has kind of woven together two accounts, one of which talks about a building and the other which talks about a vineyard. but both with the same basic lesson. Kingdom of God, you guys think your ascent, your shoe-ins... By the way, do you know all the guys that were part of this group of Sanhedrin?

They all thought that they were born again multiple times. Multiple times. Oh, of course I'm born again. I'm born again, born again, born again, born again. So Jesus talks to Nicodemus, who was one of these guys, He says, guess what? You gotta be born again. What? Yeah. So here are these guys. He says, no. We'll be taken away from you. You got no chance. What? We're the most qualified in all of Israel. No, you aren't. You got no chance. You're not even getting in. It'll go to somebody else.

Then he switches to the building analogy, and he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. Jesus quoted from Psalm 118.22 and actually part of 23 as well. And this is part of the Hallel. This is again pointing to the passage in Psalms that they would sing when they would come in when they're going to the temple. in order to point to himself as the chief cornerstone, the very one that the Jewish leaders were rejecting. He told them the kingdom of God would absolutely be taken away from them, not just you guys are at risk, but it's gone.

Just as the vineyard owner would deal harshly with the evil renters and give the care over to others. What does he mean by he who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces? Those who would stumble on Jesus would indeed be greatly damaged, or as Jesus said, broken to pieces. Oh, but he gets worse for some. This has a tripping hazard, and certainly the injury is a definite risk. But some who would diligently oppose Christ, would be deliberately judged severely to the point where Jesus says, on whomever it falls, it will scatter them like dust. Jesus will deliberately judge them with great severity.

These Jewish leaders feared the people more than Christ, as the end of the chapter spells out. They were afraid of the people. They had the wrong entity to be afraid of. Here they are, the guy that's talking to them could speak and they would be vaporized. But they're worried about what the people think. They have a very wrong estimation of what power the people had and the power of the person standing in front of them.

One of the things that comes home as you look at this passage, it is exceedingly important that people get square who Christ is. This is not something that you want to mess around with. Some kind of, well, I think this and I kind of, you know, I guess this, that's not going to do. Knowing who Jesus is and reckoning with that and recognizing who he is, is exceedingly important. Matter of fact, there isn't any bigger issue on the planet.

But more than just knowing who he is, it's also important to know him. You see, there are beings who know who Jesus is, and it does them no good. At one point in the Gospels, Jesus comes up to a man who is possessed by demons, and the demons say, you're not going to start torturing us yet, are you? They know who he is. They even start declaring him to be the Messiah, to be the son of David. So they know exactly who he is. Does it do them any good? No!

It's not enough To recognize who he is, as important as that is, it is important to know him. And you don't get there except by believing in him. And then to grow in the knowledge of him. See, it isn't just a, I know him and now I'm done, I'm going to sit down. It is a growth process in knowing him. That's why, here's Peter. I mean, Peter's one of these guys, you know, where he always says something, right? his last verse of his last letter that we have any possession of and written probably near the end of his life he says but grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ not just believe and sit down and you're done grow in the grace and knowledge of him knowing what it means for us to be in Christ. Very important. And knowing who He is in us. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, let the word of Christ dwell in you, what word did he use? Richly, not wimpily, not weakly, right? Richly That's big.

Let's pray Lord we thank you as we as we look at this passage we see certainly a whole bunch of human beings who haven't a clue and We've seen them say things we've seen them ask questions. We've seen them do things and Lord thank you that by your grace We do have a clue and we do Pray, Lord, that we would indeed go beyond recognizing who you are, as important as that is, but that we would know you and even grow in that, that we would understand more and more who we are in you and who you are in us. We just pray that you would bring this about. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.